@rgumental @dvisor

Euro : The Curious Case of Profligate family member

2011-12-03T01:07:00.002+04:00

Someone asked me a few days back about whats happening over the Eurozone crisis. It took a while for me to explain. However, i've been thinking about the correct way to explain it in a simpler language. Here it goes

Imagine a big joint family ( i.e, European Union), whose members are practicing different professions . Each has their own pet concerns, but supports each others in times of need .Suppose a profligate member of the family starts spending beyond his means. To meet his expenses, he starts approaching money lenders or banks. The lenders, because of the fact that he's from a reputed family initially starts lending to him at lower interest rates or without guarantees. This puts additional fillip to the spending person and his income expenditure gap widens. Gradually, lenders tend to doubt his capacity for repayment and reduces loans to the all members of the family. This creates difficulties even for the well performing members of the family . The knee-jerk reaction is to try to bail out the spendthrift. But even after bailing out couple of times, if he goes back to this overspending mode, what will you do ? You have two choices 1) kick him out of the family (2) make him follow an austere path somehow.

This is precisely the question that European Union is facing now. And the exacerbating fact is that the profligate member is no longer a fringe nation like Iceland. They are major economies like Italy. Few years back in my introductory MacroEconomics course at IIMK, professor Nandakumar explained the pitfalls of getting into a monetary union without making a fiscal & political union. Such a union is inherently unstable . Europe could have never achieved a political or fiscal union as cultures are totally different from one side of continent to other and they require different kinds of political policies. Maastricht treaty which established the concept of Euro was fundamentally flawed in that angle. It was an attempt to put up a strong front which would combine the bests of different factors of production , or rather efficiencies prevalent in different parts of Europe . It was a political stroke without working out necessary economic fundamentals. Given the quagmire that Europe is in now, the costs of pulling out of Euro is far higher for even the strong economies like France & Germany. Hence, I think in the short run, these powerhouses will force the rogue member states like Greece & Italy to follow good fiscal discipline. But in the long run, the associated loss of freedom ( both economic and political ) will be too much for these nations to bear. A decade down the lane, i won't be surprised if Euro nations are just the well performing economies of Germany, Netherlands, France etc.

Why Inefficiency Is Better ?

2011-08-22T21:27:00.000+04:00

Seventy Eight years ago, two nations (lets say A & B) were distressed with inflation , corruption & unemployment. A person in country A ( a hero, already by then by his clean background ), blessed with extra-ordinary oratory & crowd pulling skills , proposed an 'Enabling Act' . It was supposed to be the 'Law to remedy the distress of people', which gave him sweeping powers.. He didn't have the necessary majority to pass the bill in parliament. By a carefully crafted campaign of mass public hysteria, he appeared to have the backing of masses,especially middle class. Parliament was burned on one day. Shortly after that, the Enabling Act came into place. The immediate economic impact was enormous. The corruption level was minimized, economy was galvanized, the nation dramatically pulled itself out of the great depression .. and much more...Masses hailed him as the hero who replaced a non-functioning system (Parliament) and brought efficiency in all spheres.. But the price this particular nation had to pay for this 'Enabling Act' was big.. This particular 'Enabling Act' became the basis of the greatest tragedy that was to fall on human race in the last century..

The president of nation B implemented a set of policies advocated by eminent advisors. The resistance to these policies / laws was large. People in country B initially loathed the president. It took a very long time for the country to get prosperous. But finally it emerged as the economic superpower of world

- The Nation A was Germany . Nation B was USA . President of nation B was Franklin D Roosevelt.
They key difference between Germany & USA was that USA respected systems which put checks and balances in place by accepting inefficiencies

You cannot draw parallels everywhere. But the above story illustrates why we should always prefer systems with inefficiencies over draconian power systems. Because the functioning of an authority vested with unbridled power is solely dependent on who is at the head.

The story also illustrates on why majority opinion / referendums should not be the basis for law formulation. Democracy is not entire-population-based decision making. It is about electing representatives who would form laws in the best interest of society. For if, majority based views were always reflected in laws, we would have crazy laws everywhere. To put it simple, the 'will' of people cannot always be enforced as a law.

The success of nation depends on the institutional strengths , checks & balances & the culture. It is a delicate balance. Nobody, even those of highest moral eminence should be allowed to subvert that. Agitations & lawmaking should be directed towards strengthening the institutional balance, rather than making them all-powerful

The Legitimacy of Referendums

2011-08-03T00:50:00.001+04:00

One of the most mis-informed notions about democracy is the term 'participatory' . Much of the literature that you would see on politics / democratic society uses this term to say that citizens / electorate should have a say in every decision that Government takes. And, to this basis, many Governments / media / someone else often calls for referendums to decide on a crucial decision.

The Lokpal referendums happening in India is a classic example..The main problem with this referendum process is that often, the electorate is mis-informed / does not think about the real implications while exercising their votes. For eg:, If you do a referendum in India on whether income tax should be abolished or not, you are quite likely to get a 95% + vote on the affirmative side..
Similarly, if someone floats a referendum on whether India should attack Pakistan, the answer is likely to be on the affirmative side more often... But the point is that, such decisions have quite a lot of other implications.

The idea that collective wisdom of a large crowd is superior , is in-fact preposterous to a parliamentary democracy.. A certain manifestation of the wish of people has resulted in the elected Government. But extending this logic of collective thinking beyond a certain manageable & legitimate group has far reaching consequences & in-fact detrimental to the smooth functioning of Government.

As fundamentally I'm opposed to Lokpal, I havn't really read through the latest versions really well. Regardless of the merits / demerits of the version that Government has proposed, its totally illogical & incorrect to do referendums in the process of formulation of laws. If that was the principle, India being a federal system would have had laws supporting honor killings , child marriages & many other ridiculous stuff in different parts of the country

The law formulation is best left to the law makers even if they do it inefficiently. Because, the institutional decay of democracy that will come into place through referendums is much more harmful.
Fundamentally, not all decisions of a democratic government can be taken in a participatory manner.. And anyone who has been in a representative position for a decent amount of time would vouch for that.

PS:- For people who would like to read further on these, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republic_(Plato) is a good book

Google Plus - Wrongly Designed Social Network ?

2011-07-22T20:39:00.000+04:00

Whisky & Buttermilk are individually great.. But most sane people won't make a cocktail mixing two.. And you won't drink buttermilk by pouring it in a whisky glass... And I think this Google plus is like a platform where they have attempted to bring two different social needs together.

Fundamentally, facebook is about connecting to people whom you know.. Engaging in conversations where you expect people whom you know to reply.. On the other hand, twitter is aspirational to the core. You tend to follow celebrities, politicians, sports-persons etc.. What google plus has attempted to do is to bring these two fundamentally different social needs together... In a way, your public circle in google plus is equivalent to your twitter network.. And the other circles that you make are more or less your facebook networks.

The tweets that you make are likely to be much different in nature from your facebook status message updates.. And vice versa as well.. However, when you try to do both of that on a single platform like Google plus, no matter how segregated or maintained your circles are, there is a strong disconnect between what user intends & what the platform delivers.. Think what will happen if someone makes a social network combining facebook & linkedin .. Conceptually, your linkedin contacts could yet be another circle, but as an end-user, if you go to a platform where your professional news/ updates comes mixed up with your facebook updates, i think the experience is lost..

The fundamental mistake that google has done is to equate every social need that one has, into this concept called circles.. While, mathematically or conceptually this may work very well, there are elements of these social needs that one cannot really mix & match.. Imagine, will you get into a restaurant without knowing whether it'll provide Indian / Chinese / Arabian food ?

While opening facebook page, one has a certain expectation about the content that he/she may see.. Same with twitter / linked in.. And that core expectation that the end-user has, is fundamental to the success of a social network.. I would say, Google plus has failed in setting / defining /segregating that expectation

Terror , Government & Media

2011-07-16T02:33:00.000+04:00

"If history repeats itself, and the unexpected always happens, how incapable must Man be of learning from experience." - George Bernard Shaw

So, again it happened.. One more round of blasts in Mumbai.. As I'm abroad now, I'm somewhat away from the 24 hour sensational / breaking news culture of Indian news channels.

Yes, the Government should put in better counter terror mechanisms in place, better intelligence or whatsoever.. But I don't think they can eliminate this scourge altogether.. If some stupid wants to blast some area, there is very little that a Government can do about it.. even a well funded & efficient organization like Mossad has not been able to eliminate terror completely.. Eliminating these, if at all possible, is a political & societal solution rather than a military or intelligence one.

And I think I buy some of the comments made by police officers quoted in media.. You may prevent a lot of these ..But one fault , entire world blames you.

The Apple Reign In Kuwait

2011-06-18T22:44:00.001+04:00

There's a joke that's going round here in Kuwait ( Yep.. I'm in Middle East again for a 2 month consulting assignment ).. Whoever who sits with their heads up in a discussion room / gathering is a Nokia phone holder.. whoever who sits by looking down is an iPhone owner..because they will be fiddling around with the gadget in a perpetual manner :) .. I'm surprised at the level of popularity that this device has achieved over here.. iPhone & iPad are said to be perpetually running out of stock.. I checked couple of stores.. they keep only the latest version ( which is often exorbitantly priced ).. For eg: There is a huge price difference between iPad 2 with just wifi support & iPad 2 with wifi & 3G support.. And all the shops have only this wifi + 3G option available.. Smart sales strategy

Unlike the Western markets, the 'App-Culture' has not quite caught up here. But no matter, people keep playing on with this device for whatever reason.. And people like me who still sport a Nokia phone are like anachronisms in this part of world :)

Update:
Conversation overheard at an electronics shop
- A customer to a salesman ( pointing to an iPad ) - " I don't know how to use it..But I'll buy it if you teach me to use it" (in broken English )
Sigh!!! People have too much money here

Shouldn't Ramdev be Force-Fed ?

2011-06-03T16:36:00.001+04:00

For a news-hungry media deprived of anything new in the post-IPL season, Baba Ramdev is set to give some good entertainment. All of us are fed up with corruption stories to varying extents. Whether it is the enormity of crores in the 2G scam or black money laundering, we have to agree with the fact that this needs to be curbed. However, Ramdev's demands are far fetched to be addressed even in a totalitarian regime, forget a liberal democracy like ours. These include pulling out 500/- & 1000/- notes, capital punishment for the corrupt & so on..

More than Ramdev's histrionics, the troublesome aspect is the authoritarian attitude creeping into ordinary people and the overdrive of emotions crowding any iota of logical thinking. The idea that an individual who has made his mark in Yoga can reform a parliamentary democracy with his absurd ideas is as preposterous as thinking Sachin Tendulkar can elevate Indian football to World Cup soccer level because he's God of Cricket.

There is this term - 'Politiea' that was coined by Aristotle, Cicero & Plato in their works in different senses. Politiea is basically mixing up both Oligarchy & Democracy. i.e, restricting the right to vote to a set of people who would in the ideal sense, use their right to vote to elect the best possible rulers. Democracy / Universal franchise is derived out of that assuming that everyone would use their right to vote in the best possible way. A democracy in which people base their decisions on plain emotions or are swayed by unrealistic promises would lead to anarchy.. And if this Ramdev show is allowed to go on for a while, I fear that will happen in India.. To the best interest of the nation, I believe this guy should be force-fed and told to do what he knows best - Yoga

For a more insightful article on this, read http://www.indianexpress.com/news/playing-fast-and-loose/798740/

The Karma Of Life & B-School Prospects

2011-04-22T19:25:00.002+04:00

   Of late I’ve been asked by some people who are waiting B-School admits / have got B-School admits on what to do once they begin the course. It is true, that unless you talk to people & find out what are the things that you should expect in a B-School, you might be in for a rude shock.The following are a set of things ( extremely personal opinion, I should say) that may help a new B-School entrant in his / her 2 year stint at the institute

1) A lot of you may have come into B-School harbouring thoughts of a radical career change into investment banking / consulting from your monotonous IT jobs. I wouldn’t say that it is impossible. But keep in mind that a lot of things that you are keen to achieve are constrained by your life so far ( read, your gender, what you have in your ‘CV’   - things you cannot change ). So, don’t get upset if you don’t get a McKinsey / GoldMan Sacchs shortlist in summers :)

2) B-School is not always a place where meritocracy rules. Don’t expect the exams / valuation to be always fair / expect rewards proportionate to your efforts. Infact , you would be better off if you realize now itself that life is not a fair game

3) People ask me this - Does my CG matter ? Yes it does.. However I won’t advise leaving everything else in pursuit of CGPA. B-School is a place where you should experiment a bit. If you are a fan of photography, create/join a photography club. If you fancy yourselves talking to media persons, join your college’s media cell. If you want to try out managing a large set of vociferous student, try getting into SAC/Council.. And lot of stuff like that. Don’t do any of the above for just a thing called “CV Point” (Which, you’ll become familiar in a while). Do those things to develop yourselves as a person, stretch yourselves, strive for perfection..

            B-School is perhaps the place where you’ll find yourself in the company of peers with very high intellectual capacity..You would rarely meet people of such intellectual rigor (whether they use it rightfully or not is another question) in your workplace.. Use that environment, develop yourself. It is not that final placement’s CTC figure that you should take out of there. It is a refined & well developed personality. That should be your goal :)

Lokpal & Civil Society - Aren't we creating a monster ?

2011-04-13T18:25:00.000+04:00

Unparalleled concentration of power in any pillar of the society is a recipe for disaster, be it executive, judiciary or parliament. That is one of the basic philosophies upon which Indian constitution is built. To be fair enough, all these three pillars have reigned in themselves when one of them was trying to enlarge their power. However, I would admit that this system of checks and balances have not forced each other into an efficient system. And that deficiency is the root cause of these civil society movements which we’ve witnessed in recent times. Even so, the systemic inefficiency cannot be a justification for creating another pillar of constitution vested with unbridled authority

I don’t intend to repeat all the arguments again. If you have not read those, it is a must that you read through these links

1) http://www.indianexpress.com/news/of-the-few-by-the-few/772773/1

2) http://calamur.org/gargi/2011/04/06/my-issues-with-the-proposed-jan-lok-pal-bill/

3) http://www.livemint.com/2011/04/11213538/Anna-Hazare-and-India8217s.html?d=1

And, those of you who support Lokpal on the basis of Scandinavian model should first understand what their system is http://www.allscandinavia.com/ombudsman.htm

My opposition to the Lokpal bill is summarized in this question

Q. If, I as a civil servant / politician in power, am convicted by Lokpal, do I have the privilege to challenge that verdict in a court of law?

a. If the answer is ‘Yes’, then how different is LokPal from a subordinate/sessions/vigilance courts?

b. If the answer is ‘No’, you are creating a monster which is not accountable to anyone

The idea that self appointed guardians of civil society can be the magic wand wielding angels to cure us of corruption is preposterous, if not Utopian. And, there can never be one agreement in the selection of such committees. Already discordant voices have come up in plenty – Republican Party of India needs Dalit representation in the panel, Mallika Sarabhai wants women representation, BJP wants opposition representation and so on.

To me, the biggest losers in this circus are BJP & Left Front. They have allowed a coterie of people to exploit the political spectrum that rightfully belonged to the opposition. In a sense, this brings forth the fact that the consumerist society has become largely apolitical or non-believers in democratic processes, which is a dangerous thing to happen. Political parties across the spectrum should introspect & address that as a priority

The entire political spectrum is now agreeing at least passively to Hazare because of their fear of losing out of support from the middle class. I’d say that some version of Lokpal will come into picture, but the high profile legal background based panel that UPA has set up ( Sibal , Chidambaram, Mukherjee , Salman Khurshid ) will ensure that it’ll be a toothless tiger - and rightfully it should be so because no one, including those of highest moral eminence should be allowed to hijack the process of parliamentary democracy.

Kerala Lotteries & Financial Derivatives

2011-03-29T14:34:00.001+04:00

I recently came across an article which explains a new ( and I should say, ingenuous ) way of operating lotteries in Kerala.. For non-Keralites, lottery industry is something thats very sensitive politically in Kerala, especially considering the impending state elections in April..

The method goes like this

1) There is a reference lottery - Bhutan/Sikkim . Suppose they sell a lottery ticket in which ticket number has 10 digits
2) The Kerala lottery operator will float a shadow lottery to this, bearing a ticket with 3 digit ticket number & lets say, two/ alphabets ( the alphabet part is just to have a unique ticket number )
3) The winners will be identified on the basis of last 3 digits of the winning reference lottery ( Bhutan/Sikkim )
4) Of-course, the ticket cost & prizes are vastly different for the shadow lottery ( They have factored in the law of probabilities :) )

The interesting thing about this is that it is almost equivalent ( except the winning part ) to taking positions in financial derivative markets. For eg: if you are in US securities market, you can take a hedge / bet with respect to the value of an asset which you actually don't own.. You can bet for / against a sub-prime mortgage /bond which you actually don't own.

Legally, two obvious problems with this is that you are evading taxes and using the brand of someone else surreptitiously.. My question here is more from an economic angle. Is it beneficial for an end-investor to put his money in a shadow lottery or main lottery ? I don't intend to do a pay-off calculation here as I don't have the exact winning amounts / schemes.. But given a chance, I would any day put my money in shadow lottery as probability of winning here is higher. Maybe the winning amounts are smaller, but for a normal lottery investor, anything thats over and above the ticket cost is psychologically attractive..

Coming to think of it, I see this as a market force which has come up to exploit the inefficiencies in the traditional lottery system :) .. And, you cannot avoid this 'shadow business' as fundamentally it is very attractive to the end-investor , be it lottery industry / financial markets

Google Profiles - Preview of Facebook Killer ?

2011-03-25T14:53:00.000+04:00

If you have upgraded to the new version of Google profiles, you wouldn't have missed the uncanny resemblance it has with facebook ..My profile is at https://profiles.google.com/ajithprasadb/ The Buzz feed is sort of a stream update that you have on your facebook home page, the picasa links to your photo album... If you have configured maps, you would see a location snapshot as well.. And if google puts some intelligent thoughts into the data volume in the underlying gmail account, it can easily bring in a friends / connections network to that profile page as well.. Though, this is still far from where facebook stands in today's social web, i think finally google is getting into the social space in a correct way.. There won't be any big launches or anything like that... They may slowly start adding more & more services / features to that profile page..And in one year or so, I won't be surprised if that profile page becomes central to our social page communications :)

( PS :- If that happens, I guess I'll have to roll back the new facebook comments system that I painstakingly configured in my blog :) )

Facebook Comments on Blogger

2011-03-07T19:12:00.005+04:00

( Test post - Will be edited as I experiment with this feature )
- Finally working well except for the width :)

Seeking Alpha of Financial Literature

2011-02-23T15:40:00.000+04:00

There is a big problem with many writers in Finance / Economics.. Most of them are stuck with one philosophy & keep on repeating that in every book that they dole out.. Few months back i picked up "The Big Short" by Michael Lewis.. I have to say that till now I havnt been able to complete it because in one way or other most of the ideas / stories that he describe are present in one way or other in his earlier book - "Liar's Poker" .. Individually these books aren't bad.. However, collectively these two are repetitive..

Another prominent writer who falls into this category in George Soros who keeps on harping about his concept of reflexivity in every book that he writes.. Same case with Tim Hartford ... Buying Logic of Life turned out to be a waste after reading Undercover Economist

Infact, I'd bet these writers are diluting their brand value by doling out similar ones .. Even though I liked Taleb's both books - Fooled By Randomness & The Black Swan , I won't probably buy anything that he writes again for the same reason.

Dear Nokia Share-Holders

2011-02-16T14:09:00.001+04:00

Dear Nokia Share Holders,

Over the last few days, you would have read & re-read the so-called open-letters (letter 1, letter 2, & the revolting letter -3 ) many times.. If you were an institutional investor, you would have made handsome profits by shorting your dear 'NOK' if you knew what was coming. If you were a retail long term investor you would have been puzzled with the enduring hold/sell question seeing the wild market fluctuations that were coming minutes after each of those letters.

One cannot collectively put blame on all share-holders for the mis-management happening. If your holding is/was small, you would have had absolutely no chance in influencing the decision to pick someone - who has literally no big background in smart phone business - into the most important position in your dear 'NOK' . However, I cannot selectively address the audience. Hence I've to hold you responsible.

What your CEO has done is to make your dear 'NOK', a factory for making pure-plain-dumb-hardware. I would urge you to double check on any holdings that he has in his erst-while company - MSFT . If there is any winner in the deal spelled out here,it is MSFT. Regardless of the merits & demerits of Windows Mobile OS, what Steve Balmer has got is a back-door access to your mass customer-base for selling ads , apps & content. If your CEO was least concerned with your dear 'NOK' , he would have done atleast one among this in the proposed deal

* Should have eked out an exclusivity agreement with MSFT
* Should have preserved the OVI Store & Maps instead of integrating it with MSFT Market Place
* Should have eked out a revenue sharing agreement for the e-commerce & search revenue coming out of the phones
* Should have atleast had one solid point in this deal which would result in cash-flows coming to your dear 'NOK'

In the absence of any of the points described above in the deal, what your CEO has done is tantamount to selling your dear 'NOK' to MSFT . I believe it is too late to bring in another CEO into this exciting space where innovations like these are happening.

Hence I would suggest three options to you

* Force your dear CEO to sell your dear 'NOK' to MSFT. Appoint competent iBankers for this deal. I would say, you will definitely get better value for your shares out of this deal even after paying the hefty iBanking M&A fees

* Liquidate ! Sell at the next most appropriate moment during a decent market rally

* Resign to your fate. "Remember Red, Hope is a good thing to have"

Thanks

- A Nokia ExpressMusic ( 5800 ) owner looking for an alternate phone as my cash-flows improve :)

Human Endurance vs Physical barriers - How far it can go ?

2011-01-28T13:17:00.000+04:00

I happened to read this http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2011/01/23/peaked_performance/?page=full recently..
It got me thinking deep.. I used to follow athletics closely about a decade back.. Of late, nothing much has happened in terms of breaking the world records.. And really how far it can go.. Just take Long jump & High Jump .. Mike Powel's long jump record has been there from 1991 ( In between, i guess Ivan Pedroso broke it, but that was probably annulled ) .. Javier Sotomayor's record has stood there from 1993..

As the article claims, unless someone invents a better Fosberry flop technique, high jump may stay for some time.. But, no matter whatever technique is being used, aren't there practical limits which human beings cannot simply scale.. ? For eg: , can we ever think of someone running 100m race in some 8.5 seconds ? ( Given the fact that the current record is 9.58 by Usain Bolt ) . Won't that be a sort of physical barrier ?

The Problem With Wikileaks

2010-12-12T21:28:00.000+04:00

Over the last one month, we've been inundated by wikileaks with all these 'top-secret' diplomatic cable communication records .. Of-course, some good aspects have come out like the true-pictures of prisoner abuse & related stories..But I've to say, bulk of this leaks is practically useless and to a great extent, undesirable.. I came across this link http://www.ndtv.com/article/wikileaks%20%20revelations/wikileaks-cables-singapore-called-india-stupid-japan-a-big-fat-loser-72197 today... The headline screams 'Singapore called India stupid , Japan a big fat loser'... Now if you read through the story, you would see that its some diplomat who has expressed this opinion.. Its not the stance or official position of Singapore..its just an arbitrary opinion of a diplomat.. Now the media highlights it with a catchy tagline to get reader-base.. An average news reader will be easily enraged by these kind of stories if he happens to be on the receiving side.. I'd say, a large proportion of Indians who read that news would have felt some level of animosity to Singapore.. This is precisely the problem with wikileaks.. By revealing these kind of communication between two officials, they are just fueling animosity..

Some of the other crap that was released by them - http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/11/29/wikileaks_shocker/ Most of these arbit stories are comments / faxes by some diplomat to their superiors or colleagues.. Such comments between two individuals should never be escalated to such an extent that it creates unnecessary animosity .

During my time @ IIMK, we maintained a google group for Students' Council to discuss about various things happening in institute.. There are lot of crass comments like this in that GG for/against many people ..However, those remained in the group and was never allowed to become the official word of Council.. If that was thrown open to public, a lot of people would have felt strongly against us.. I tend to compare the feeling/irritation of people who are at the receiving end of wikileaks to what we would have felt if that Google Group was ever made public :)

The Triumph

2010-12-03T20:18:00.000+04:00

Its almost a day since the announcement came..Still the vuvuzelas are going on and on over here in Qatar.. An event thats going to happen after 12 years means that much for the common man here.. Football has a greater purpose than being just a game.. If you look across the world, you would not find anything else that unites people more than soccer.. Cutting across religion, politics and races, soccer is perhaps the greatest unifying spirit of mankind.. By taking World Cup into unchartered territories like Russia & Qatar, Fifa has done the right thing-- bring more people under this unifying force..

Its a beautiful time to be in Qatar... Its much more than just hosting a tournament.. Its about bringing unprecedented development & world-wide visibility to the Middle East.. Its about bringing together a region that has been ravaged by conflicts for quite long.. Its about unifying people..I hope I can come back here in 2022 to see some matches :)

If you don't write about me in your blog..

2010-11-15T12:33:00.001+04:00

Post marriage, wife has been threatening me with dire consequences if I don't write about her in my blog.. Now, I have to admit, I thought Students' Council @ K was the ultimate lesson in diplomacy.. But again, I've been proved wrong.. Bachelors over there, marriage will teach you diplomacy at its best.. Some nuggets of diplomacy ..

At marriage reception
---------------------
She : (Introducing someone to me ) This is xyx ( name ) my aunt's nephew's cousin's ...
Me: Oh hi.. How you doing.. Nice to meet you..
(post 5 minutes )
She: Hey, u remember xyz
Me: Huh!! Which xyz ??
She: #$%^#%
- This happens both ways.. so, not much of a problem.. you tend to meet 100s of relatives.. you remember barely 10 of them..

At a shopping mall
-------------------
She:- Does this top look beautiful ?
Me:- Yes yes.. ( Have to say, there is no alternative answer to this)
- This doesn't end there.. this goes for multiple iterations.. And I've spent a disproportionately large proportion of my time waiting in-front of trial room to give this 'Yes yes' answer.. And needless to say, I've stopped looking at my credit card bill.. Finally coaxed her to take a credit card :) :)
-- post 2 - 3 hours
Me: Ah..I'm tired :(
She: #$^^%*$@ .. How can you get tired while shopping ?

At home
---------
She : (After cooking experiments) Is this tasty ??
Me:.Well...yes ( If you give this answer, the argument stops there :) )

Now, professional commitments have put us in two different countries till Jan :((.. So, the arguments have shifted to phone

Over Phone
-------------
Me: Hey..I forgot to tell you..I'm going to see a tennis match
She: Hmmm..you don't tell me anything :(
Key learning - The statement 'forgot to tell you' is a taboo :)

Having said all this, I've to say its beautiful :) .. & I miss you :(

F-Mail ??

2010-11-14T09:53:00.000+04:00

No..No.. Its not an expletive :) .. On the other hand, this Monday(15-Nov) could be a day when email communication gets redefined again.. Last time it happened was when G-Mail was announced in 2003-04.. And as per lot of reports, Facebook might be coming up with a mail system..
News Links

- http://www.mercurynews.com/ci_16599333?source=most_emailed
- http://techcrunch.com/2010/11/11/facebook-gmail-titan/
- http://techcrunch.com/2010/11/13/youve-got-fmail/
- http://techcrunch.com/2010/11/10/facebook-november-event/

The Mallu'ish 'Gelf'

2010-11-06T11:42:00.001+04:00

When people told Qatar is full of mallus, I really didn't expect this much..
My usual intro conversation with a new person whom I meet here

Me: Naam kya hain ?
Stranger : Eh !!

Me: Name ?
Stranger: Eh!!

Me: Perentha ?
Stranger : Oh..peraano chodichathu ... Peru ... xyzz

Now I've started talking straightaway in Malayalam

Near the place where I stay in Doha, there is a Kerala inter-district football tournament going on.. I've to say that the level of competition that I see in that is much higher than what is usually seen at Calicut in any of the leagues .. Some snaps from that

The Penalty :)

The Open-Economics of Technology-1

2010-10-30T21:13:00.000+04:00

While I was studying engineering, there was a huge fan-following towards this Open-Source / Open Standards in technology.. I guess thats still there.. Microsoft is/was seen as the villain.. Linux was the holy grail of computer science folks..

6-8 years have passed by after that .. Now, the villain is Apple , with its tightly controlled iOs,Appstore ecosystem.. And the perceived open-angel is Google with its Android ecosystem. Steve Jobs in his various interviews and talks insists a profound point about this open-ness. "Ultimately customers are not bothered about whether the product is open or not..They are bothered about the experience with the product"...

There is this nice NYTimes article that I came across recently.. They are comparing the Mac-Windows phase with iPhone-Android 'battle' now. In the quest for perfection in experience, Apple has largely kept a close-knit system. In the quest for economies of scale, Android has taken a lot of manufacturers into its fold. For Google, achieving economies of scale matters a lot..Mobile Ad-revenue is a space that they really want to dominate. And to do that, they really need to make a large user-base on Android..

Is this really a head-on battle as analysts have been speculating ? Apple's goal is to create break-through products that gives a compelling user-experience.. Google's goal is to dominate Ad-revenue share from Search.. If we look from these two contrasting perspectives,Apple shouldn't ideally bother much even if Android installed base is gets much larger than iPhone base.. As long as there are enough App-developers making good Apps for iPhone, they should not really be bothered even if Android installed base is high..

Right now, making an App on iPhone is far more profitable than making an Android App.. But if the scale-economies turn the developers too towards Android, Apple should start to bother.. But the customer segment using iPhone is affluent. And, they are really not going to turn to Android for a fad towards open-technology anytime soon.. For them, its just the experience that matters.. I guess Jobs has figured that out.

Being in 'Extremes'

2010-10-05T19:36:00.000+04:00

  I've realized something of late.. I live in extremes.. I'm either extremely professional or a totally lazy guy.. I'm either extremely competitive in some cases, whereas in others I really don't bother to raise even an effort..I'm either emotionally dead ( which many people have accused me of ) or i'm an emotional wreck in rarest of the rare situations.. I'm either very calm & composed or i'm extremely frustrated... A subject either interests me a lot or it just doesn't go anywhere near me... I don't belong to anywhere in between..

   The problem in being in extremes is that when you are in one extreme, even in situations which require the opposite extreme behavior, you tend to fluster... Its very tough for me to strike a middle path. There is a property of extremes because of which this middle path is extremely difficult..Typically if you take a pair of contrasting extremes, one extreme ( say, extreme A) would mean you expect a lot from your environment/society/immediate circle of friends/family...In the opposite extreme ( say extreme B), you would expect nothing from anyone.. If you are in extreme A, absence of some expected behavior would would tend to push you more & more towards extreme A.. You wish you were @ extreme B.. But switching is kind of out of our control.. Situations may have modeled / cultured you to be in say, extreme B behavioral state.. switching to extreme A is very difficult... And once you switch somehow, each and every situation that may require the opposite extreme behavior won't even bother you..But may bother others a lot :)

Discovering Economies Of Scope in Technology

2010-08-22T19:00:00.000+04:00

  There's this interesting joke that I came across in Seeking-Alpha "Intel bought McAfee because the bloatware that McAfee sells is second biggest driving force for CPU upgrades after Windows. And CPU upgrades are good for business at Intel"

   Its a strange acquisition in many senses.. Intel paid a huge premium ( 60% premium @ $48 per share in an all cash deal worth $ 7.7 billion in cash ).. Never heard of a tech-acquisition that big in recent times.. Even the big buys made by Oracle were a mix of cash & share options. So, what made Intel buy McAfee which runs a seemingly unrelated business of anti-virus & security software ?

   To understand this in a better way, there was this interesting debate between Steve Jobs @ Apple vs Adobe..It was over the unsuitability of flash for iphone..The letter by Jobs is still given on Apple site .. A lot of points in this debate are on open vs closed systems.. But there is this point related to hardware given by Jobs - "To achieve long battery life when playing video, mobile devices must decode the video in hardware; decoding it in software uses too much power" ..Jobs' argument is in a different domain..But the implied point is that, as electronics on these domains advances, more and more functionalities move into a hardware domain from a pure software related side..Audio was the first one, Video controllers built into chips were next and Security related functionalities may be the next

   During my engineering course, we were taught this interesting observation called 'Moore's Law' ( Gordon Moore was one of the co-founders of Intel ) .. It observed the number of transistors per square ( and consequently, the processing power) inch on an Integrated Chip doubled every year.. This rate of growth has been rather slow over the last 5 years or so. If you compare the PC processors that Intel has been doling out, even though they have been boosting the speed, there is very little value add for a normal person.. In other words, unless I'm a gaming freak or a graphics designer or some specialized application user, there is very little need for me to buy a latest Intel processor based PC/laptop.. Intel has been unable to make any significant progress on a 'value addition to a normal user' over the past few years..And thats reflected in their cash-rich balance sheet ( They have a cash balance of $18.3 billion it seems )

   So, basically Intel is trying to bring new value at a hardware level.. As the processor speed based game kind of leveled out, Intel needed to do something innovative or special to keep its hold on the consumers.. In other words, they are searching for new economies of scope by buying McAfee..
   To be fair to them, this acquisition is just a no-loss experiment.. For, there is no better way to use their huge cash reserves ( maybe other way was to give out huge dividends ) ..And even if they fail to integrate McAfee technology to the chips , they are not going to lose out as McAfee themselves have a stable business.

The Clock Runs a Full Circle

2010-08-18T20:55:00.001+04:00

There is a lot of noise being made about Mamata Banerjee's common rally along with the Maoists.Left & BJP are equally vociferous in criticizing her..I'm no Trinamool supporter either, however I find the development actually positive

I'm an eternal optimist when it comes to Indian politics. Somehow the belief that system will work out well in the long run is entrenched in me. During my first year @ IIMK, I was exposed to an amazing course called Social Transformation of India taken by A F Mathew. It exposed us to the grim realities of Rural India and why people take up arms as a means to end desperation.. Arms struggle is not a viable option in long term..Neither will it work in a well informed & increasingly well connected world.. The growing assimilation of Maoists in Nepal to the mainstream politics in a pointer to that. I've a feeling that even the Maoists in India are realizing the futility of an armed campaign outside their comfort zone..In Economics terms, 'Network Externalities' are forcing Maoists to take this path :)

No matter whatever be the political brownie points that Mamata is aiming at, the fact is that Maoists are increasingly seeking an acceptable 'channel' to the outside world.. And that political channel, whether it comes through Left or Trinamool is largely immaterial..

History, Predictions, World Cup & Taleb

2010-06-20T21:40:00.001+04:00

I read an amusing argument in a World Cup news section of some paper - "Since 1962, European teams & Latin American teams have won the world cup alternately. Going by that logic, it'll be Brazil or Argentina this time" .. About 2 - 3 years, I might have been swayed by these kind of arguments, however, after reading Nassim Nicholas Taleb's Fooled by Randomness, I tend to be amused by these kind of predictions..
   There are different kind of predictions. One type of predictors just give out their bets / premonitions..Second one, you just do a set of data analysis, find some pattern and make your bet based on that..If you win, you tend to develop a self-belief in your logic, which might not have any rational basis.. You never tend to realize that you have made a correct bet just out of randomness, rather than any strength in the underlying logic.. A lot of stock market bets are again like that..You tend to observe a set of past events , make some generalizations and place a bet..If you win, your tend to feel a high...Very rarely do such people realize that they are indeed 'fooled by randomness'

   You tend to see such illogical statements or predictions everywhere..FIFA site now screams this just ahead of match between Brazil & Ivory Coast - "Brazil have never conceded a goal against an African team in the history of the World Cup. " Now, what logical connection do past WC matches of Brazil have with today's match ? I wonder how many ppl would have bet in Ladbrokes based on such comparisons..

   In 1996 World Cup Cricket final between SriLanka & Australia , Arjuna Ranatunga, the Srilankan captain won the toss and decided to chase. Back then it was unthinkable..Why ? Because from 1975 - 1992 ( 5 world cups ) , no team had won a World cup final by chasing..Everyone won while batting first. When Ranatunga won the toss & decided to field, I remember many commentators criticizing that decision..
Srilanka won that final . In the post match conference, I still remember a journalist questioning Ranatunga on his decision to field first. To that , Ranatunga answered like this - " I don't believe in history. I believe in ability" ..Srilanka in that tournament had perfected the art of chasing..And to that basis, Ranatunga's decision was correct. However, had Srilanka lost that final , the first criticism that Ranatunga would have faced would have been over his decision to field first.. Very few people will recognize this randomness bias in such situations..And even if you recognize that, it would take a lot of guts to "go against history".. Back then, I didn't understand the significance of Ranatunga's statement. But after reading Taleb, all such things make more and more sense to me.

Now back to World Cup Soccer..Seeing the way European powerhouses are playing , I don't think anyone amongst them is going to win ( PS:- I'm a hard core fan of Netherlands Soccer team ) .. And based on the current form, I would any day bet on Latin American teams..And when this tournament ends and say Brazil/ Argentina wins, people should realize that its not because of this 'alternate winners between Europe & Latin America phenomenon' , but it is because of the way they have played.

The Goldman - SEC Tangle

2010-04-29T15:41:00.003+04:00

   When someone makes a very flashy statement , it quickly catches the imagination of the public..News sites repeat it again and again because of its sensationalist value..If you read in general about the global financial industry, this statement wouldn't have missed you last week - "When you buy protection against an event that you have a hand in causing, you are buying fire insurance on someone else's house and then committing arson "..

A very catchy statement made as an accusation against Goldman Sachs recently..However if you dig a bit deep into this extremely interesting case, you would find that this statement is metaphorically wrong to be used in this context.

At the heart of this entire quagmire is this structured financial product called 'Synthetic CDO's' .It actually seems to be like a gambling instrument.Player A thinks that a particular market ( in this case the housing mortgage market ) will tank. He thinks that he can profit out of this by buying a lot of 'Credit Default Swaps'(CDS) on some bonds in this market. However, he cannot get CDS out of thin air. Players B & C feel that the market is bullish and thinks that they can profit by being on the long side of insurance ( CDS ) . Investment bank GS brings these players together and with the help of another intermediary, structures this transaction putting player A on the short side , B & C on the long side. Essentially what GS was doing was just 'making the market' or brokering the deal between parties who had counter views on the market. It was guaranteed that one side will lose and other will gain. Eventually the market tanked & player A won.

SEC case is built on this premise - "GS failed to disclose to players B & C that the person who came forth with the deal was on the short side ". In other words, GS failed to do its fiduciary duty to the investors. However this argument falls flat on one good point- The relationship between GS & players B&C is not investment advisor - investor .. Its rather the relationship between market-maker and a client. The client in this case is an established institutional investor who has his own views about the market..Had Goldman taken this deal to retail investors ( and internally betting against the market ) , it would have been a clear case of fraud.

  Similarly one of Goldman's counter arguments was also a little bit stupid. With respect to this particular trade, GS themselves lost out about $90 million as they were on the long side. How did GS lose ? It is common for the agency brokering the deal to hold a slice of investment ( a long position ) so that the other players on the long side get a confidence . GS apparently held that long position to give the deal a bit of credibility. They would have thought that they can easily exit this long position, which they could not do..And ultimately it resulted in a loss for them.

   If Goldman was advising clients B & C ( investment advisory ) in addition to being the market-maker, there would have been a clear case of conflict of interest ( this aspect is yet to emerge in SEC hearings I think ). Essentially one agency cannot at the same time be both investment advisory & market maker.So, does this mean that banking has to be separated from market-making ? I think yes. Because there is a clear case of conflict of interest. And with these esoteric financial instruments, the conflicts might deepen

   Is there any Social Value for these Synthetic CDO's ? After all, the players involved have no insurable interest & they do not own the bonds. Isn't it just betting ? However, this argument isn't that sound. This is in one way the equivalent of short-selling in stocks. Short selling is a powerful mechanism to deflate bubbles. It aids in price discovery. However there is a big difference between short selling and CDS. The Credit Default Swaps are private agreements. Short selling is done through stock exchanges ( atleast a high volume ) . Very little information on the CDS market is known publicly. If CDS settlements are routed through central clearing houses,the information on the volume of bets would be known in industry and players would be more careful against bubbles. Infact, volume of CDS trading is a better indicator on the value of bond rather than pure credit ratings. Hence, I think the solution is not to ban Synthetic CDO's ( by that argument, even short selling will have to regulated as players just speculate rather than invest ) , but to make the information public.

I don't think Goldman is 100% clean..However I would bet against SEC in this :).

Few worthy links
1) http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE63R5C420100428
2) http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2010/04/goldman-fiasco-renews-call-to-ban-useless-securities/39254/
3) http://blogs.marketwatch.com/fundmastery/2010/04/28/goldman-sachs-let-the-clients-beware/
4) http://beforeitsnews.com/news/37684/10_Burning_Questions_The_Senators_Should_Have_Asked_Goldman_Sachs.html
5) http://www.csmonitor.com/Money/2010/0427/Goldman-Sachs-hearing-Is-Congress-missing-the-point

6) The pitch book - http://www.businessinsider.com/check-out-the-66-page-presentation-on-goldmans-abacus-cdo-deal-2010-4

Doesn't Albie Morkel Look like Michael Ballack ??

2010-04-21T18:04:00.000+04:00

Doesn't these two people have an uncanny resemblance ? The first time when I saw Morkel play for CSK, I was just wondering did they contract Ballack for a celebrity status.. The similarity appears even more striking when seen on Television

The Fixation with Devil among Keralites ?

2010-03-31T19:13:00.001+04:00

Last month's Google Analytics reports on my blog gives me this interesting keyword search stat..

Satan worship in Kerala ( 18 visits )
Satanic worship in Kerala ( 8 visits )
devil worship in Kerala ( 4 visits )
Satan worship in Cochin (4 visits )
Satan worshippers in Kerala ( 2 visits )
...and some more with one hit each

In total about 40 Devil related keyword searches reached my blog last month.. I had written once from a technical perspective on this http://ajithprasadb.blogspot.com/2009/10/keywords-psychology-computer-science.html
.. But wondering what's the reason behind this sudden spike in interest with devil among Mallus.. Is it because of exam season or something ? Any rational explanations ?

The Office Of Representation

2010-02-16T16:42:00.003+04:00

When I came over here at IIMK, I never thought I would have a 2 year stint like this.. I'm someone who had stayed away from practically anything other than Acads during my undergrad.. Infact 70% of the students at NITC would have been in some Ragam committee or other...but i've never been in one over my entire 4 year stay over there.

With such a background behind me, I found myself in the thick of all activities over here.. Got elected into Students' Council couple of months after I came here..and after that it has been an enriching ( & extremely difficult at times) life.. It has been a stint that taught me a lot.. In many situations my way of thinking has changed a lot because of this..

Words can never describe these, but I'll give a few examples to Illustrate..

* Often, an average Indian has a high tendency to blame the govt / authorities / whoever who is in charge for lot of issues that he's facing.. Like, he'll say electricity supply is breaking down frequently, petrol prices are spiralling up, cleanliness is not maintained in public places etc..All these are facts.. But the point that the common man might fail to realize is that the Govt / administration is working under lot of constraints....petro prices might not be in govt's control, they might not be finding enough municipal workers to clear garbage etc.. Now all these might seem to be excuses that Govt should not make.. it seemed to be so to me till 2 years back..

Here I've been at the receiving end of so many issues..washing machines not working, dogs in campus, budget money not deposited , marks not fair...and much more.. I'm in a representative position which exposes you to all these kinds of demands from people..Even as I'm writing these, complaints about the Mess bill are coming up in IP.. In other words, I've realized what it is to be like when you are running a govt ( can't equate this to the real govt running experience, but may be a minute fraction of that ) .. You might want to do a lot..but you are often bound my many constraints.. This 'constraints' might seem to be a political excuse to many..And many people might not buy this kind of an excuse.. but often thats the answer when people come to you with issues that you cannot resolve...The reasons could be many...may be you don't have the power..may be addressing that might lead to more problems..maybe you simply don't have time ...and much more.. The problem in such an office of representation is that it is very difficult for your constituents to realize the barriers that you have.

* In the earlier point, I mentioned about the lack of time..Again to a normal citizen, the excuse that govt does not have the time would seem to be an insulting excuse..But then, its a fact.. Here, there have been situations in which I've got many such issues to handle from different people.. Each one of them might have often felt that why my issue is not addressed.. Unfortunately, he's not aware of the entire set of issues that we are facing... He often thinks from a perspective that his is the only issue.. But we might have may be 10 identical or non-identical issues from 20 different people coming to us...And if we prioritize that, probably his issue might not figure in the top set.. And if we, being in an institute with about 550 odd people have face it, I can imagine the kind of pressure that a Govt would be going through.. And often this pressure would lead to govt into a non-action state..or in better words, a not-too-bothered state.. People call that inefficiency...but in reality, its not just inefficiency...its something more systemic.. govt cannot be thought of as an answering machine or a grievance addressing mechanism...those are just parts of the machinery

* B-school is perhaps the worst place theoretically to preach or teach altruism.. But I've realized value of being altruistic to a certain extent by being in this office..Before coming here, I had a strong conviction that by putting in certain correct incentive mechanisms , you can make people work...But thats not correct in many situations... Many of the so-called capitalistic things can be done in a better way if you sensitize your workers in an altruistic or socialistic way... And paradoxically this realization has come in a place which is supposed to be the rock-bed of capitalism in modern times - the B-school

What really makes elected representatives work ? You really don't have an incentive mechanism set up over there.. Constituents elect their representatives.. Maybe the only thing that the representative should be worried about is the re-election.. Now, that re-election threat alone is not enough to make people work.. Unless the representative has a dominant altruistic inclination, its very difficult for him/her to be motivated to work.. Just as in the case of a B-school were the carrots of CV point & all are not really enough to make ppl work ( these are motivating enough for ppl to contest ) , you cannot design enough carrots for an elected representative to work in a political system..

* In a democratically elected govt ( or for that matter, any type of govt ) , many of the decisions cannot be taken democratically..There have been situations in which we as a student body felt that a certain course of action was correct taking into consideration the long term interest of the institute, but felt that if we bring this issue up for discussion or voting among our constituents, we may not be able to get that done ( in a democratic way ) .. And we went ahead recommending the correct course of action in a non-democratic way (i.e, without taking the consensus in the batch) ...the fear might have been unsubstantiated though.. But the underlying point is this.. Whenever an issue comes, there are often calls from lot of people saying, lets do a poll..lets do what the majority feels..etc... But thats a very very wrong way of thought.. The majority in a democracy might not think in a rational way.. majority might not consider long term interest at all...Like, if we do a poll in India asking whether income tax should be reduced to 5% or not , a democratic solution would result in 5% tax...but with that tax, govt cannot sustain the system.. Democracy is often called a participative form of governance..But it should be participative only when the elected representatives call for participation...When to invite for participation is another call that representatives need to take ( and that call is often a tricky one )

And much more..I can go on and on in this subject... But enough for a blog post..

Few years later, I may pen down all these experiences , principles, learnings etc in a book :)

The Economics Of MatchMaking - Part 1

2009-12-02T21:54:00.004+04:00

After losing hope of myself simplifying their job, my parents have taken up charge & put me into the 'market' ...Or in other words, I've debuted on Bharat Matrimony :) ... Purpose of the post is not to discuss about the happenings over there... it is to discuss the economics principles behind this..

(Anyone who is not interested in Economics, please feel free to skip the content below)

In term-4, we studied one of the best courses that I've come across at IIMK - Complementary Products & Competitive Advantage.. In that, there is this concept of 2-sided platforms..Intuitively it is very simple -- 2 sided platforms brings together 2 distinct sets of customers together.. Credit card companies bring together merchants & consumers... Iphone App Store brings together the App developers & phone owners together...etc.. In most of the cases, the platform tend to benefit from one set of customers..Like, Credit card companies tend to benefit mainly from merchants ( they usually give lot of discounts to consumers ) .. However in that aspect, this matrimony portal business is kind of unique.. They tend to benefit from both the sets ( men & women ).. Their income is from the paid membership ( though I'm still not very convinced about its benefits ) ..And there is no price discrimination thats really employed over here.

Is that the correct business model or will these portals benefit if they employ a slightly tweaked pricing model ? The success of a 2-sided platform depends on the volume of customers...Its like a vicious cycle..More the number of consumers having ICICI credit cards, more merchants will buy their card machines & more the benefit to the bank .. Applying an analogous concept, what actually drives the success of these portals ? Are men attracted by the number of prospective women signed up in this ? Or is it vice versa ? Its like a chicken & egg problem..

Either way, one specific drawback to this business model -- It can easily be dis-intermediated ...i.e, one can easily sign up in this, find a prospective partner, get their contact & get married without paying even one rupee to this portal... Its in a way like Software companies turning a blind eye to piracy..Most university campuses are havens of pirated software..And still software companies don't bother about that much ..The reason - The grads from these institutes occupy the corporate decision making positions tomorrow & they will be so used to these software packages that they will end up buying them for their company use.. ( Companies are very strict on their anti-piracy efforts on the corporate front ) .

My main question is this - What is the best pricing model for this marriage portal business ? A total paid membership will restrict people from trying it out..Even a semi-open type pricing has a strong risk of dis-intermediation..

And what will happen if we set the pricing/fee of service at different levels for men & women ? Will that be better ?

Book Review : 2 States - The Story Of My Marriage

2009-10-28T10:32:00.005+04:00

I guess this is the first book that I read at a single stretch after a long time..Infact first book that I read completely after joining IIM :) .. Picked up Chetan Bhagat's 2 States from a book exhibition... I had lots and lots of assignments , work, studies pending.. But none of those concerns stopped me once I started reading :)

The story is quite fast paced initially.. IIM life..That struck a chord initially itself.. Cribbing about mess food..the cryptic economics classes...the gossips that start to go on when a girl & guy starts going around..late night assignments.. Before you adjust yourself to the fast paced story style, the couple has kissed , had sex & has started a live-in relationship ...

From here on, the story takes a melodramatic Hindi movie style.. They graduate, guy gets a job in Chennai along with her.. Guy tries various tricks to impress the girl's family, IIT Coaching for girl's muggu brother, conflict of South Indian & North Indian cultures, Office politics & much more..

I'm not killing the suspense by narrating the entire story course...I rate this book somewhere in between 5 point someone & One night @CC .. Infact the fast paced first part is almost at par with 5.someone.. Second half is also good, though in a different style..

I really liked some of the the smart dialogs that he has given..

"I've never spoken to an IIT'ian before "

"You are not missing much :) "

"If there is nothing as attractive as a pretty girl, there's nothing as repulsive as a cocky chick"

"Every girl wants an IIT brother, big help in quant subjects" :)

"You're not talking to her"

"You seem quite concerned :)"

"Ok..you are better looking" .. The girl who asks the question is the better looking one :)

.... And much more

... ....

Keywords, Psychology, Computer Science

2009-10-09T17:42:00.004+04:00

I just went through the google analytics report of my blog indicating the keyword searches that lead people to my blog...Some of the interesting ones given below..

1. Satanic worship in Kerala , Devil worship in Kerala ( 6 ppl searched for this ... :) )

2. NRI going back to India ( Was that a matrimony related search :P )

3. Whats happening In the economy ( Ah..atleast google considers my writings on these worthy enough )

4. Aim of my life ( People do tend to ask this question.. But finding out answer to this question from web looks to be a bit weird :) )

5. Keralamatrimonynair ( ahem!!!...Google is intelligent :) )

6. Ponds facepowder product presentation ( Ah...this should be some MBA student )

7. Spending money in MBA is good or not ( I wish it is good :) )

If I go through some of these keyword targeted posts, I might be able to find some word-based relation between the keywords & what i've written .. For eg..The satan / devil related searches were actually landing on http://ajithprasadb.blogspot.com/2007/06/gods-own-country-devils-own-people-and.html

Now, there is some literal matching between the keywords in searches to whats there in that post...But semantically those are very different.. What the person who typed those keywords wanted & whats there in that post is totally different from a semantics perspective... And thats where the technological challenge still lies ahead for Google.. Search as a computer science problem is only solved to the extent of 5%.. There is still a long way to go before Google/ Bing bridges the gap between what consumers intend & where the search results lead to..

Another aspect here is the ability of Google to know whats the pulse of the masses.. Having a big DB of such keywords is like knowing what the world thinks..And that in turn throws up amazing marketing opportunities..

( PS:- If you are more interested in this field , I'd recommend a book named "The Search" )

Time Value Of Friendships

2009-09-28T16:48:00.002+04:00

There are certain friendships/associations that stays throughout your life even if you don't put much effort into that.. Certain people gel naturally with you.. On the contrary, there are some friendships, no matter whatever effort you put will fade in due course of time..Its not that these people don't like you or you have any aversion towards them.. Its just that time brings about different priorities , different aspects etc..

The other day, i just thought about many of my friends who have graced my life during different times.. There are a few among them with whom maintaining consistent interaction comes naturally to me..and to them too...And there are a few among them with whom even if I put in lot of effort, the gelling does not come .. It certainly isn't intentional.. For, if i get in touch with them somehow, the phone call / talk is often quite good & interactive...But somehow, both of us does not feel any urge of maintaining that continuity..

So, what exactly makes a certain friendship to continue ? Its puzzling..Isn't it ?

The Sinusoid Curve Repeats

2009-09-24T00:05:00.003+04:00

When I blogged about this, I thought this is a one-of-a-kind incident... It happened again soon..Apparently the curves were steeper & unexpected this time....Sigh!!! .. Why again.

Current Mood: Disturbed :|

Rewards, Returns & Efforts

2009-09-22T16:03:00.002+04:00

One typical characteristic that I've found in many people is that they attach too much importance to the end result / return that their efforts might bring in..In Corp Fin terms, these people would do a certain action only if they are sure that the NPV of this action is > 0 ... The problem with this category of people is that if by any chance , the results don't materialize, they become very desparate... " Yaar.. we did so much..and we did not get anything in the end" ..

There are lot of advantages to this philosophy..These people tend to focus so much on ultimate results so that more often than not, they are likely to get it.. In the process, some do adopt not-so-fair means....But thats a different ethical question..

I was like this for quite long...Even now, I'm not totally immune to this way of thinking... And disappointments or failures really made me desparate & sad.. For the last couple of years, I've been following a diff approach... I don't attach too much importance to results...But I make sure that the efforts are put in a professional manner... i.e, once i've decided that I do something, I'll do it professionally... to the best of my abilities...

The end result of anything is a function of your efforts and a random variable..If the random variable takes away the results in an opposite direction, you certainly don't deserve to be sad.. Or in other words, I subscribe to a school of thought... It is not the 'end result' that matters the most..Its the path that matters the most... You do your job to the best of your abilities...Results, don't bother too much about that..

The Notion Of Success

2009-08-03T17:47:00.001+04:00

Quite a few people, especially my relatives regard me as a highly successful person...Maybe because of these NIT , IIM tags, may be because of a relatively well - off academic credentials etc.. Somehow I get irritated when people talk to me with such a kind of perspective..

Let me confess - I'm someone who has missed achieving 90 % of what I aimed at in terms of academics.. Even when my parents talk to my brothers preaching them to aim at my academic credentials, I'm least impressed... Because for me, the notion of success is something higher.. I'm happy at what I'm... But I don't think anyone should aim at my career / acad levels and try to match those .. Because I see higher pedestals of what we can call as success .

At every point in life, I had this habit of trying to match myself to people whom i thought were the 'role models of success' ... I could not emulate most of them..But as a strange turnaround, I often saw that, those people whom I benchmarked as successful in one stage , didnt do very well in the subsequent stage of life...Like there were people - seeing whose performace in the IIT entrance exams and all I thought 'these were highest manifestations of success and its them that I should try to emulate' .. I had this habit of tracking the life of people like these either from the net or through some acquaintances... And I happened to learn that many of them didnt perform pretty well in their engineering college life...maybe they were in a wrong place , maybe circumstances were different ..etc... But whatever be it, success in one stage is neither a pre-requisite , nor a guarantee that you will be successful in the subsequent stage..

Same case repeated during engineering life ..Some of the people whom I thought could be marked as role models, cutout a sorry figure for themselves in professional life... In the sense , the DNA of success was something different for each stage.. Same with CAT & IIMs...Some of the guys who used to ace mock tests & CAT , I hear , have fared badly in IIMs ( not just academically... but in many aspects ) .. And if we include the realm of personal life , the picture again gets murkier...Many of these academic stars have had pretty bad personal lives...Many ppl who have happy personal life are nowhere near academic success..

I know I might sound a bit crazy, but still can't help... 'Is there an absolute measure for success ?? ' .

Lohithadas ... Down the memory lane

2009-06-30T17:05:00.003+04:00

( Mallu specific post.. others excuse please :) )

There are some four / five malayalam movies that I recommend to many non-mallus.. And 'Thaniyavarthanam' is one among them... And that script is perhaps the best work of Lohithadas , who passed away couple of days ago.. The societal pressures forcing a normal man to lunacy is a masterclass... The combination of Sibi Malayil & Lohithadas has given some of the best movies to us.. Another notable one among that being 'Kireedom', the national award winning movie.

I would perhaps place him at the same pedestal as the late Padmarajan.. However, both styles were essentially contrasting though..

As many news articles say, "Lohithadas ini oru orma"

Mixed Emotions

2009-06-05T21:16:00.002+04:00

There haven't been such a day in the recent past when on instance, I felt so good...and on another instance, I felt so disturbed... To be true, if I've to describe today - 5th June '09 - in terms of emotions I felt , it would be aptly mapped by a sinusoidal curve with 3 crests & 2 troughs.. However on all situations, I knew it was coming ... though I didnt knew whether the crest or trough was coming...but that knowledge helped me to deliver a balanced response.

There are some situations in life when you have to speak up...And I'm happy that I did that today... I do believe that a core value education has instilled in me is to make sure that I don't take things meekly... that I dont silently submit myself to the so called system .... that I do try and fight.. that I do make a conscious attempt to make things better... And I'm proud that I attempted for that today....In the process, it did hurt someone...But I feel it'll do a lot good for him & the system in the long run.

Conventions & Logic

2009-05-17T16:25:00.003+04:00

He: Hey..Why are we doing it this way ?

She: Its supposed to be done like that

He: Why? It doesnt seem to serve any purpose .

She: This is how it was done till now & we need to maintain that way.

He: But there are better ways of doing this..Why spend such an awful time for doing this in an archiac way ?

She: That deviates from the convention..

He:Its like a dogma..U spend so much of your time to preserve a convention which doesnt seem to serve any purpose.

She: It was done like this till now & it'll be done in the same way going forward no matter what effort it takes..We got to do it.

He: Sigh!!.. Is there any single word for 'useless convention' :)

- There's this wonderful movie - 300 - in which they picturize how statements from Oracles are made..And the futility of obeying to a convention/norm/dogma is shown in a touching way... We get exposed to different systems in our life...None of them are perfect..Rather, those systems are the need of a particular time frame..When times , technology & people change , systems got to change.. We may very well comeback to the old system at a later point in time..But that doesnt mean that we should be averse to experiments / change...People who think differently from conventions tend to come up with something better..Change should be in everything we do..it should be in technology, processeses, people...everything..

Always respect two kinds of people the most - People who make a system & people who break a system...

Recession , Economy & MBA’s

2009-04-18T14:52:00.004+04:00

( Disclaimer - Quite long post )

I get lot of questions on these topics nowadays..When will recession end, whether I should invest in stocks , whether rupee will move up/down etc etc….Being IIM students, quite a few expects us to be well versed & knowledgeable in all these areas..Infact these are million dollar questions which even very well renowned economists are trying to find answers for… In this post I’m trying to answer some of these with my limited economics & finance knowledge… Ofcourse, these explanations are highly debatable..But anyway, if you are interested in the subject, read on…

What is Recession ? Whats happening in the economy ?

Mathematically/Economically , if a nation has gone through two continuous quarters of negative GDP growth, it is said to be in Economic Recession… Leaving out all such stats & complicated explanations, what has happened in the economy is that people are extremely reluctant to spend.. Banks are reluctant to lend, consumers are tightening their wallet fearing tougher days ahead, limited investment comes to stock market, businesses are cutting down on various projects -- All in all, the circulation of money in economy has come down to a large extent..

Why is this happening ?

The root cause as many know comes from the financial crisis in US..Now I’m not going into the subprime literature & explanations, but will present mainly a postscript picture. .

Businesses operate on credit. i.e, they rely very highly on external finances. Its like, if a company has 10L in assets, it’ll typically do businesses in excess of 10L by raising money through various means – private equity, stock market , corporate bond market ( this is largely absent in India ) and lot of other sources.. In short, most companies in US & many companies in India rely heavily on external finances. Due to the banking crisis, lot of these external finance sources have dried up… partly due to bank failures in US, partly due to reduced confidence among investors , the credit lines ( cash supply) for most companies have dried up..This effect is more prevalent in US & to a lesser extent in India.

How can we get out of this ?

The way to get out of this crisis is to bring back an optimistic outlook in the economy..i.e, its not that banks / people don’t have the money… It’s just that everyone has turned out to be extremely cautious in spending money, which has got economy to a screeching halt .. Hence to kickstart it again, you have to make people spend.

How are Governments addressing this ?

There are two ways in which Governments can address troubles in economy.. One is monetary policy ( layman’s explanation – by altering the money supply using central bank ) and fiscal policy ( spending by Government itself which typically leads to short fall in Govt’s finances ) ..

Monetary policy tools have been extensively used in the recent past by all central banks – Interest rate cuts, SLR / CRR adjustment etc.. What they are trying to do by these measures is that they are just trying to increase the availability of money in the system so that people start spending.. But whats happening is that, every one (in US) is still extremely cautious .. And spending hasn’t kick-started inspite of easy availability of money .. And in US, they are fast approaching a situation known as ‘liquidity trap’ – lot of money in the system, but none spends,and monetary policy is ineffective … US has actually reached the bottom limits of monetary policy – their interest rates are almost zero , Meaning there is very limited scope of further using monetary policy tools to get out of this… In a developed economy like US, rates & money supply is ideally governed by something called as BCD nexus ( Bond – Currency – Derivatives Nexus ) … It’s a bit advanced topic..So, don’t want to discuss that here.. The fact is that the Fed measures in US have almost broken the so called BCD nexus , which is again dangerous to an open economy.

On the other hand, Fiscal policy tools have been often criticized by economists during the post – Keynes era a lot.. The catch in using fiscal policy to get out of recession is that the private businesses will suffer a lot…The explanation goes like this …

Govt Increases spending -> deficit in govt finances -> fiscal policy says monetize the debt or print money to cover the deficit ( which has lot of other implications ) / raise money through govt guaranteed bonds - > Raising more money through Govt guaranteed bonds means you have to raise the interest rates of govt bonds - > private businesses would find it tough to raise money since people would always invest in govt bonds as they are more safe and give high interest -> this would again dry up the already tight credit lines for private businesses. .Economically, this situation is called ‘crowding out of private business’

And in a place like US where the lobbying strength of private enterprise is very high in all levels of government, significant fiscal policy measures are unlikely to come.

Whats the situation in India with respect to these measures ?

India is still in a very better shape compared to US. The interest rates are still high ( i.e, there is still scope for monetary policy measures to come ) , no banking failures … But the problem with India is that large part of corporate credit lines used to come from private equity from abroad / Indian stock market.. And these sources have dried up. . Plus , an average man in India still prefers to invest in assets like Gold / land / even stash his savings in a locker .. This is actually very detrimental to the economy as the money thus locked in are in unproductive assets..i.e, there is no circulation of this money in the economy…And equity market is still viewed with significant aversion among Indian middle class.

So what is the alternative? Fiscal policy ?

Fiscal policy is still an alternative in India. Reason being, unlike in US, a large part of India is still very much underdeveloped… Significant infrastructure projects are still required in India.

But more than that, I would say a vibrant corporate bond market is the solution in India.. Reason – as I said, an average Indian investor is still risk averse. He would any day put his money in a bond (which is basically an investment with assured returns) than in equity (which has a risk of losing money). A competitive corporate bond market would typically drive the stock market to higher levels of efficiency . Small & Medium enterprises in India are still at the mercy of a large number of money lenders who charge exorbitant rates of interest. That situation has to change if we have to get out of this slowdown.

Why the corporate bond market is not developed in India ?

Many reasons – Any of you who would have been fleetingly reading the news would be aware of the changes that SEBI( which governs the equity market) has gone through over the last two decades to counter lot of scamsters. I would say, the implementing a corporate bond market is even tougher than that. Because, a bond is something in which you are assured that you get a certain amount of payment regularly..Now how would a regulatory agency assure that for whomever who want to float a corporate bond ? Its not an easy task and it requires much thought & good implementation mechanisms.. Credit rating agencies , trading houses, regulatory checking…All these are not easy to implement.. But at the same time, this is not an impossible task too.

Should I invest in stock market now ?

Long term investment – Yes…Infact a definite yes..But pick the companies carefully.

Short term – Pretty difficult to get good returns unless you know the nuances of day-trading.

I’m running a company / I’m in a significant decision making post in a company.. How should I counter this slowdown ?

Know your business sector really well & try to see what all changes are coming up.
Invest in people. A set of established processes / practices wont drive you out of recession. Infact if you follow such dogmatic practices, its highly likely that you would go bust. Rather, invest in people who can innovate. New products/ ideas / new ways of doing business etc would be the critical factor which would make you a winner. Pick & retain people who can do that.
Cost rationalization ( Not layoffs :- ) )

Know your costs in a system really well.. Know which action is impacting which revenue item / expense item.. Just cutting down freebies like biscuits / tea to employees is not something that’s required … Infact such blind cost cutting measures are likely to bring in a lot of resentment within the company. ..And talented people would jump the ship once the economy recovers J

When will the economy recover ?

The million dollar question J .. US economy – I would say, its pretty tough to predict.. I would bet that the recovery in US economy would depend on some very good innovation related product / company.. As in, say if I-phone was released this year, Apple might have kickstarted the US recovery.. So, depends .. Recovery there would be largely driven by some of the innovation based companies like Google / Apple /3M or some of the oil & energy companies ( this would inturn depend on when the economy of China & india comes good J ) .. It is unlikely to be kick-started by some heavy machinery / automobile (unless say GM comes with an innovation like ‘flying car’ J ) / construction / infrastructure related companies.

Indian economy – I would bet on 2009 end to 2010 April/May or so …

Reasons

A long inventory replenishment based explanation ( actually derived from an Interview of Chanda Kochaar, which I’m unable to find a link ) , which I’m too bored to type in here J
A lot of regulatory mechanisms are supposed to come in US & Europe over banking, insurance and lot of other sectors – this would ( hopefully ) drive lot of outsourced work here & inturn would drive up the spending in India
Lot more readings & some gut-feel J

I’m just joining engineering. Which field should I take ?

This is actually a crazy question. The answer to this does not & should not depend on state of economy. If you like a field, take it..If you have significant aversion towards any branch, don’t take it..But more than that, pick your college intelligently.. Brand matters :)

Will the rupee go up / down ?

In the short term, rupee is expected to maintain a depreciated level as Foreign investments are less likely to flow in ( less dollar in India means more rupee to get dollar ) and the liquidity level in Indian economy is expected to remain high ( more availability of rupee means less value for it and you need to spend more to get a dollar )..So, don’t bet on 43 – 45 levels..It should be in and around 50 levels ( disregarding the spikes ) ..

Long term – Not possible to predict as Indian exchange rate system is still very much controlled ( and it should be so ).

Should I learn Finance ? Would finance continue to be relevant ?

Inspite of all these complicated financial mess, finance would continue to be very relevant. Hence if you are interested, learn it..But I should say, the days of fly by night stocks, IPO's , corporate managing market capitalization of many crores just on a brand name & not even one real business investment - All those are over atleast for the immediate future.

How can I learn finance/economics?

There are no well defined starting points.. Read good articles in business line / financial express / business standard ( depend on the respective author’s credentials to judge whether an article is good or not. Also, read these blogs -ajayshahblog.blogspot.com/,

http://www.iimahd.ernet.in/~jrvarma/blog/index.cgi/ , http://gregmankiw.blogspot.com/ , http://www.thefinblog.com/ & articles linked from there..

( PS:- Contradictory perspectives are highly valued..There’s nothing absolutely correct in Economics :) )

1/2 MBA

2009-03-30T18:17:00.004+04:00

Not quite... Two more exams tomorrow... And an eventful academic year ends..

Moment of Third Term

------------------------------

MR Project presentation.. This was something in which I had free rided completely except choosing the topic .. Ofcourse, can't help when there are 4 academic projects :|

Prof : When the targeted market is population in Kunnamangalam ( the place where IIMK campus is situated ) , why did u restrict yourself to IIMK students for the survey ?

Presentor:- Sir, we did not have anyone in our project group knowing local language ( innocent reply )

Reality - There were three mallus including me in the group :-)

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MBA Vs B-Tech Life

I miss the carefree academic life that I had in NITC.. Reading lot of books, learning whatever subjects that I liked... Infact, the volume of acad materials is so huge in an MBA that even if you dedicate 100 % time to studies, you wont be able to finish those....Indeed, I miss learning some subjects which I would have loved to learn if I had enough time.

What I don't like in MBA life - The emphasis on CG & not on knowing the subject.. Not because of the fact that my CG is not great :-)... But somehow, peer pressure drives everyone into efforts just to boost the CG....Exams/quizzes means - just study the PPT's ...Even I'm a culprit to that to an extent :-) ..

But I enjoy the responsibilities that have come up my way here.. I feel I'd be a better person by the time I finish the course owing to these responsibilities..MBA is indeed a tight rope-walk balancing many things in life..

( PS:- Check - http://iimklive.com/studcon/about/- This has become an integral part of my life here....perhaps to an equal extent as acads :-) )

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Trivia

One critical factor to succeed in life is to have 'information advantage'...i.e, if you know certain things that you need to do to gain an advantage over others, whereas others might not really have that.. This was something that I really lacked during my B-Tech , as well as work-life.. But here I had some of that advantage owing to many factors..And I leveraged on that... But it is difficult to sustain that advantage.. Or in other words, I couldn't drive that information assymetry to a long term advantage for me here... ah.. a bit abstract :-)

Next few posts from Chennai... I'll be interning with Cognizant for next 2 months.

A Typical Quiz@IIM

2009-03-17T18:29:00.003+05:00

Here is a section from a mail from a subject's course co-ordinator over a quiz conducted last week.. The paper was out of 10 marks :-)

Population Statistics

Mean : 0.37 maybe

Mode : 0 (by a long way)

Maximum : 2

Minimum :0

Range : 2

Frequency Distribution

Marks Frequency

0 65

1 3?

2 7?

-- No prizes for guessing how much yours truly has scored in this quiz :) :)

The Tale of MBA Projects

2009-03-01T21:54:00.003+05:00

Quotes During First term projects selection

"Man..We should be doing a project that will add value to us..We shouldnt settle for anything less"

"Project should help us sometime in the future when we are working in industry "

"You know, these are the real learning opportunities in an MBA course "

"Lets brainstorm on this for 2 days..And after that lets meet @ Cross-roads at 23:59 on friday"

Quotes During Second Term project selection

"Man..I dont care about value addition..But I want it as a CV point..I mean it should be something worthy enough to put in the CV"

" See, its not about the topic..Its all about how you present it.. Remember , that bugger - XYZ - got max marks last term for a crappy project "

Quotes During Third Term project selection

" Minimum pain - maximum gain..that should be the motto.. "

" Criteria one - Is the project topic 'googleable' ? "

" Lets somehow finish it man..I'm tired :| "

-- This is where the story stands.. Ofcourse some of the projects that I did , I really enjoyed ( Macro Economics ) ..Some, I really dont have any idea what happened in that ( Ethics, Marketing ) ..

There are only two phases for an MBA project

One - topic selection..This used to take about one week or so in first term..Now i did that within one hour for some subjects in this term..

Two - 2 / 3 days before the presentation.. Thats where I'm now over one project.. and it invariably boils down to the last day..

I wonder how it'll turn out to be in the second year.. some people say, the motto will be

"Lets fraud the project" .. I hope it doesnt come to that extent :)

Slumdog Conquers Oscars :)

2009-02-23T20:09:00.003+05:00

Whatever be your opinion of this much entertaining movie, today is a great day for India.. Just two Oscars till yesterday -- One life time award for that maestro, Satyajit Ray & some costume related award for Bhanu Athaiya in Gandhi , Slumdog gave us quite a lot today ...Rahman, Russel , Freida ... and as the jewel in the crown - Oscar for the best movie..

What makes this movie special ? Its entertaining , fast paced, at times emotional, often dramatic...but these attributes are found in quite a lot of movies... To me, the speciality is that it captures the feelings and imaginations of all Indians.. Its a movie for the masses..Forget any cinematic imperfections..forget over dramatization, this is just something that quite a lot of people could relate to...could identify themselves with .. Cinema is for the audience.. And thats where Slumdog scores :)

As the music streams out of my itunes player, I can feel the emotions of many....And the music would stay on for some time :-)

Current Music - Ring Ring Ringa !!!

Jai Ho :)

Options..Differences..And a lookback :-)

2009-02-11T21:11:00.003+05:00

Some people are precociously talented.. Or rather, is it fluke that gets them to these superlative achievements.. Eitherway, these people make you understand one thing that I blogged about sometime back...

"the reason behind an action by me might not be comprehensible to you..And a reason behind your action might not be comprehensible to me..Or rather, these buzzwords - rational , logical , common sensical -- all these vary from person to person to a great degree"

You tend to realize that something for which you struggled a lot does not even figure as worthy to someone else... :-)

On a different note... I'm again hooked back to this wonderful idea of blogging before exams..:-)

Never there was a dull moment..

Never there were games..

It was nice ... It was bliss..

For I was being myself then..

Times have changed..Years have gone by..

Looking back, I do regret...

But I'm thankful to a lot..

For, those taught me a lot..

For, those made me what I'm today..

Ajith

How To Be Idle :-)

2009-01-31T01:16:00.010+05:00

Thats the title of a book :-) ..And I came across that in the most unlikeliest of all places.. A B-school .... An exceptionally cryptic Corporate Finance class going on.. I kind of lost my way half way through..The fact that I didnt prepare the case/chapters didnt help much :-) .. And my neighbour was reading this wonderful book :-)

I read this book a little bit later.. An amazingly attractive start.. It describes alarm clock as the worst invention that mankind could make.. How evil minded the genius would be who fused the time keeping device with a noise making device to disturb humanity forever :-) ..

It just helps you to realize the value of being idle atleast sometimes :-) ..It'll make you realize that even in the midst of cut-throat competition , there are people living life at their own pace.. Havnt read this past the first few pages..

I'm on a path towards professionalism.. Being in S'con ( Yea..got re-elected into Students' Council :-) ) , I've to work a lot optimizing my time... Yet..I thought a lot about random stuff today...things with no purpose... I spent a lot of time just like that ... Those few hours of idleness was bliss :-) ... It made me realize that its occassionally good to take a break and be idle...

3:32 AM ... Got to sleep now. And again tomorrow morning the worst invention by mankind would pull me out of sleep.. into the world of activity....

Moments of Term 2 :-)

2008-12-25T22:18:00.005+05:00

This wasnt as exciting as Term-1.. An exceptionally hectic term with summer placement activities and some really hectic subjects...But still, some of the really nice moments..Some in my class..some in other sections..

1. " Millions of years ago there was a giant continent called Pangea..Australia separated from that and moved to ..... "..Thats how an economics presentation of Australian economy started :-) ... Indeed when you have to give a presentation for 35 min, these things might happen :-)

2. "This restaurant was not functioning optimally...because..because..it wasnt functioning optimally"

3. "These are extremely impotent issues"

Some Realizations

-------------------

1. There are two kinds of people when it comes to night-life @ IIMK..Those who play Counter-Strike & those who do not ..And I belong to the second category :-)

2. Most time in B-school is spent not on case studies,projects or assignments..But in highly intellectually simulating discussions on global issues...or better known as "bakaar" .

3. When it comes to accounting,you feel like why u did engineering and not C.A :-)

4. Main objective for second year - See all the good movies in LAN :-) .

Moments of Term-1 linked here

Random Thoughts of an Insomniac MBA mind :)

2008-12-13T00:17:00.008+05:00

In a not - so - usual pensive mood today..Some random thoughts sparked by a few incidents arbitrarily put under different headings..

Idealism

----------

Its easy to advocate idealism... but not at all easy when you are at the receiving end..Being ideal might bring you nothing much but frustruation..And especially tempting when the alternate path to to idealism might be something thats not much of a compromise...Its easy to ask 'why ?' ..But its easy to ask back 'why not ?'

System

-------

To reform a system, you have to be a part of the system..But at times, why bother reforming it ? ...or if you can find a better system why not be a part of it rather than this ?

Pragmatism

------------

When to be pragmatic ...when to fight ? Being a B-school student, I'm tempted to give an answer in terms of NPV :-) .. But this decision is something thats very judgemental..And it cannot be brought down to numbers.. This is an art actually ..An art that might affect the aspirations of many people... I wish I could perfect that.

People & processes

-------------------

In my life I've mostly performed well in situations where you can drive the purpose through a personal rapport.. Or rather even in professional aspects, I've many times achieved good results by working on a personal rapport basis..Back during my work life, I wondered why dont companies invest in people much? Corporates try to make their business more and more independent of people..Or rater replaceability is something that they usually strive for... Now i think I realize the importance of that..For, there is nothing wrong in investing in some people..But whatever happens, the show must go on..thats most important ... Or the paradigms / processes /ground rules of the game or whatever you call it should be consistent... Damn! it took this incident ( can't quote which one :) )to realize the true importance of setting up true frameworks..

The question of image.

-----------------------

There is something that life in NITC taught me -- If you keep worrying about what others would think about your actions , you wont be able to do much..Or rather you would end up with lot of regrets & frustruations.. At-least in personal matters, I rarely think about what others would think about my actions.. And some of my actions might seem to be really stupid..But really, I dont bother much..For, regret is something that I dont want.

But actually this equation goes the opposite way when you look at professional / organizational matters.. Your image,credibility,ethics ....all matter a lot... And the catch is that its often very difficult to keep professional & personal life as totally separate... To illustrate this, I've met some extremely brilliant individuals in my life..But I haven't really liked some of their personal traits... Few years down the lane, if I come across a situation in which I have to make a decision on hiring one among these for a job, I would be heavily biased against hiring that individual because of his undesirable personal traits..Because , professionally you can't succeed just by analytic skills..your personal aspectswill be a great factor in your assimilation into a team.. But ultimately, its a very subjective call.

Ah!...Enough !.. Time is 2 AM..I've some 4 assignments/projects to submit in coming week :-(.....But letme see a movie from LAN first :-) ...Sleep ? Forget that in B-school :-)

Media,Politicians & Terror..

2008-11-27T22:20:00.004+05:00

The Mayhem in Mumbai has ended apparently...I'm not going to do a post-mortem of this..There are enough articles in almost all news sites over this..But couple of incidents that happened over this terrorist siege..

-----------------------------------

1 . Media has a habit of reporting statements selectively..Not sure if thats the case here..But if this guy really said this, no wonder he is often quoted as 'crown among clowns' .. What a practical joke.

Jai Soniaji !!!

( PS:- Check the comments section of the news link )

-----------------------------------

2. Media's live war commentary -- The ATS chief is shown live on TV wearing bullet proof jacket & helmet as he enters the hotel... Later on, he is dead by a few bullet shots at his neck --Did the terrorists see the live broadcast so as to shoot at his neck ? Apparently it cannot be ruled out as media themselves reported that terrorists had setup command & control rooms in Taj & Oberoi..

NSG commandos were airdropped at Nariman house..This footage is shown as a deffered telecast or something ' a short while ago'.. Also, quite a few live telecast taken from some nearby buildings which clearly showed the NSG commandos stationed on top of Nariman house were also shown..Did these broadcasts alert the terrorists so that they got enough information to prolong the siege ? Forget all that..plenty of sniper shooting positions which NSG took were shown live..

These reminded me of a documentary movie that I had seen sometime back over the Munich Massacre in 1972

The live telecast shown by almost all channels about the police sniper positions & airborne dropping of commandos was cited as a major reason that aborted the initial rescue attempt ..

-- Nothing can be conclusively established from these....But the point is that there is something called common sense..Atleast that should have told the media people that this 'fancy war reporting' is actually ridiculous..

----------------------------------

Current Mood:- Speechless & Sad :|

B School Life - Part III

2008-11-16T17:19:00.003+05:00

Observations, learnings and quite more .. Now, in the midst of term II

1 - Key skill enhancements/learnings during summer placement season

- How to dress up in business formals in 5 minutes .

- How to gas about virtually anything unknown.

- How to ask 'intelligent questions'

- How to change your career preferences betwee marketing/finance/operations/consulting

as you hop between different company procedures.

- No matter what you prepare, your selection/rejection is mostly determined by your

communication skills rather than technical knowledge.

2. As time becomes something of premium value , the usage of deodorants increases exponentially & that of bathing soap decreases in the same rate.

3. When you don't have time, why clean your room :) ..There is no value addition in that :)

4. If google stops working for one week, MBA courses would come to a screeching hault :-)

5. Initially people were reluctant to attend quizzes without preparations..Now we ( atleast I ) dont bother attending midterms without much preps..In the next year, I'm hoping that for end term too, we won't bother.

6. Business attitudes creep into day-to-day life a bit too much...

7. Lose touch with atleast some friends & acquaintances from your pre-MBA life unknowingly

8. The academic subjects are awesome...but unless you chose the life of a bookworm, you won't study all that to its proper level.

9. But there's lot of fun !!!!!

10. And yeah, I'll be interning with Cognizant in their consulting division :-)

Earlier parts in this series

- B School Life Part II

- B School Life Part I

Belling The CAT ..An Insider's Perspective :-)

2008-11-07T20:22:00.004+05:00

For a change, third sunday of November this year will be a day when I'll be able to relax..For the last 5 years (Yes, FIVE ) , always this day used to be a crucial one for me.. Five CAT attempts..Or rather 2 non-serious attempts ( CAT - 2003, 2004 ) ..followed by two serious CAT attempts (2005 -- B call and kicks from waiting list , 2006 - better scores..no calls )... And in 2007, an unprepared attempt -- and I'm here in IIMK :-) ...Now that I'm on the other side , let me reflect a bit on this often crazy selection procedure and this much hyped exam.

Btw, all opinions listed below are extremely personal opinions.

1) I know people who made it into ivy league schools like Kellog, Wharton and all, but couldn't crack CAT.. Just because of the fact that you cracked this exam does not mean that you are the most suitable candidate..and vice versa too.. Infact, the difference between 98 %ile ( no - IIM calls ) and 99.5%ile ( 5-6 IIM calls ) is often 2- 3 questions.. And seriously, there is no big difference between a person scoring 97 / 98 & another one scoring 99.5 odd %ile... These 2 -3 questions might go you way on some day..and might not go you way on another day... So, then why are IIMs so adamant on these so called cutoffs ? Its because of the sheer number of applicants.. Because of this huge number ( it think about 2.7 Lakh people are testing their luck on Nov-16 ) ,IIMs are forced to do an elimination procedure rather than selection.. Western MBA schools base their admission on lot of factors like your past experience, CV , SOP etc..GMAT score is just one of their inputs..Infact, ppl with even 680 in GMAT might get interview calls from ivy leagues, but ppl with may be even 760 might miss out...And the differentiating factor there in profile..IIMs too weighs in the CV,experience etc in their selection procedure..but they are usually adamant on CAT cutoffs.

2) So, just because of the fact that you failed to make it through does not mean that you are not good enough..it might be plain unluck..And I've faced this unluck many times and missed out making it through couple of times.

3) Now over to the exam, CAT usually throws lot of surprises..so, be prepared for that in exam hall..maybe it will come in different number of sections, maybe differential negatives, maybe progressive negative..or may be no surprise at all.. Keep your compsure whatever the situation be . Because quite lot of candidates lose out because of inability to handle these surprises

4) Be flexible enough to address your strategy in between..If a section is turning out to be easy,realize that everyone else too will find it easy..Hence cutoffs will go up. And you will have to attempt more questions to clear the cutoff.. And vice versa too..if a section is too tough, cutoffs will come down.

5) Realize that CAT paper might have erroneous questions.. Such an erroneous question ensured that my DI score last time was below the IIMA cutoff.. So, if you feel that there is something wrong in some question, dont waste time... leave it and proceed to the next.

6) Dont make it an ego issue to solve any question that you attempt. If it is tough, dont waste time ..just leave it..there would be plenty of questions in the section

7) Over QA - tackle questions that match your strength..I used to be good in geometry & trigonometry..so, used to pick those questions selectively. ..after that,attempt other questions

8) DI - your judgement in picking the right caselet is crucial.. And check all the answers that you have got in a caselet once again before marking them..because if you go wrong in a caselet, you may get all negatives :)

9) VA - If the pattern is like last two years, attempt the maximum.. The answers would be pretty ambiguous and coaching institutes too might go wrong in bringing out the verbal key..So, even if you are VA - stud, expect only 50% accuracy..and if your attempts are sufficiently high, this accuracy will ensure that you cross cutoff.. Last CAT, I attempted 22 out of 25 verbal questions...accuracy of half ..but still got 96.4 %ile in verbal.

10)CAT is just the first step...Realize that your profile matters a lot in your final selection..If you are a versatile personality with all round achievements , you will have better chance than some analytic geek who scored 100%ile...So, work on your profile after the exam.

11)Once you are into IIMs, its a mad rush for CV- building.. A person having an exceptional CV with lots of achievements will be valued more than someone having just high grades during placements..So, the profile, CV ..all that matters a lot for an MBA aspirant..

12) For any urgent queries about the exam , use http://www.pagalguy.com/forum/cat-and-related-discussion/35312-cat-2008-helpline-ask-iim.html -- thats a Pagalguy thread run by IIMK students..Someone among us will answer your queries about the exam.

So, good luck for CAT..Bell it :-)

The Google Phone - What Next ?

2008-10-18T08:55:00.005+04:00

About an year back, I blogged about Google Phone.. Quite a few developments have happened in this area after that..And a few days before, Google came up with its first Android based phone , manufactured by HTC..

Quite a few of the applications in this G-phone or G1 happens to be similar to what I thought about last year.. quoting Larry Magid's article,

"there is already an application called iSkoop that lets you make free or inexpensive international and domestic calls using Skype".. -- This is a key point to Google's overall strategy..10 years later ( or maybe even before that ), G-phone will be a device just to connect to internet..No SIM card as such..U'll talk to people using G-talk ..Just take the g-talk in your phone, tap the person's user ID, and make a call.. No complicated maths like STD/ISD rates or anything like that..Infact, the much hyped about number portability will come into existance this way..i.e, as long as u have ur gmail ID, u'll be accesible from anywhere..

Quoting another point in the same article... "Warning to merchants - my favorite application lets you use the phone's camera to "scan" a product's bar code to look up reviews and comparative prices"

-- I never thought John Battelle's fantasy ( check my earlier post ) would get converted into an application so soon :) ..

But Google had a major setback to this overall strategy last year - They lost the bidding for the US Wireless spectrum

Consequentially, these concepts of No-SIM + mobile Ad based phone business model will take some time to come up. Maybe soon, Google might strike an alliance with Verizon(the winner of wireless spectrum bidding) ..Afterall, the AT&T - iphone combination is proving to be too good in US..

Quite a few analysts are speculating whether this G-phone is going to be an iphone killer . The interesting thing about iphone is that, if you analyse its every feature, u'll find better offerings in market ( camera phones from Sony is better, Nokia's robustness is great ... etc )..Maybe in an aesthetic sense & battery backup , iphone is really great. But what makes iphone tick is that it brings to you a 'great' combination of 'good' ( not the best ) features and a strong tie-up with AT&T.. And Apple's itunes based music + phone + carrier tie-up business model is really great.. Atleast in the short run, no, i dont see any possibility of G-phone dethroning iphone.. For that matter, Nokia too has realized the importance of bringing in a multitude of features to its phones and is investing heavily in music & GPRS based maps..But in the long run, I'd bet that Google's strategy will succeed..

So, what next to expect from Google ?

My take

1) More efforts on wireless spectrum front-- maybe a tieup with Verizon or some other prominent player.

2) Music/Entertainment - This remains a strong point of Apple.. And I really wonder how Google is going to tackle this front..Maybe some innovation/business model based on youtube ?

I dont know..

3) Gpay integration :- This would come soon

Ajith

Age, Marriage & a Tag

2008-10-03T00:52:00.005+04:00

Aging is a reality . On sep-29, I completed 26 years of existence in this planet.. Now when someone gets into this so called 'wrong side' of 20s, the pressure towards marriage starts building from all the sides... I notice a definite change in the way my elder friends & relatives tease me..

4 years back: Hey, how many girl-friends do you have ?

3 years back: Hey, do u have a girl-friend ?

2 years back: Hey.. time to find a girl for you.. Any good looking Nair girls in your office ?

( yes, there were..but they were married :( )

1 year back : Hey, all of us thought you'll find a girl on your own..u have disappointed us..Shall we find one girl for you ? There is this girl, who is my second cousin's grand mothers's uncle's daughters' son's neice... ( damn..why are relations so complicated )

Now : Hey.. heard ur Amma has started looking for suitable matches for you ?

-- I see that over the years, the girl-friend factor in queries has come down and 'arranged marriage' factor has been going up.. Can't help it..

GWBE has tagged me over a similar subject..Can't refuse the tag from college & IIMK senior :P Now lets go to the tag..

1. If your lover betrayed you what would your reaction be?
I think I'll move on.. I've come past the age of brooding over spilled milk.

2. If you have a dream come true, what would it be?
That I'm free from all constraints and get to do what I like at my own pace.

3. If you could, whose butt would you like to kick?
I hate this..Thats why I removed b'day alert from orkut :P

4. What would you do with a billion dollars?
Travel around the world ..Acquire landmark / crosswords :-)

5. Will you fall in love with your best friend?
Ah..well, possible.. Long back a friend of mine remarked to me "There is a thin line between friendship & love "

6. Which is more blessed: loving someone or being loved by someone?
Being loved by someone.

7. How long do you intend to wait for someone you love?
I dont know..It depends.

8. If the person you secretly like is attached, what will you do?
Look for another girl :-)

9. If you could root for one social cause, what would it be?
I've not come to an appropriate answer to that.. There was an NGO, Asha which I was associated with sometime back..Liked their motive..But still, I dont think its a final answer to our ills.

10. Do you lie?
Very rarely..Usually its done either accidentally or to follow some rules / decorums.

11. Where do you see yourself 10 years from now?
I firmly believe that you can't plan your life more than a span of 2 years realistically..So, not sure :-)..Would take it as it comes.

12. What’s your fear?
I dont know..Can't imagine anything right now.

13. What kind of person do you think the person who tagged you is?
She travels a lot..I think after I graduate I'll ask her to give a job in her company..Where all she travels..Scotland, Swiss, ...I forgot the list.

14. Would you rather be single and rich or married and poor?
Married & poor..And buy a sub-prime mortgage based house..There are enough ways to live in this world if you know finance :-) ..
PS:- Check that subprime link..Awesome slides..Link given by emperor prometheus

15. If you fall in love with two people simultaneously who will you pick?
I've had simultaneous crushes towards Vidya Balan & Katrina Kaif..But unfortunately, got chance to pick none :-(

16. Would you give all in a relationship?
Yes.

17. Would you forgive and forget someone no matter how horrible a thing he has done?
Yes for most..but not for all.. Shawshank Redemption influence :)

18. Do you prefer being single or in a relationship?
Both have its own advantages/disadvantages..Having said that, I think my bachelor days are numbered with increasing pressure from all sides... So,lets wait and see :-)

19. Your all time favourite song. Only ONE. And why?
Sooryakireedam veenudanju.... From my favorite malayalam movie Devasuram..
Very few songs picturise the transformation that happens in a person this much beautifully..There is one song in Kireedom too..But I like this better.And over the movie, check the link..and lot of videos in youtube too :-)

Ajith

Moments of Term-1 :-)

2008-09-20T14:54:00.004+04:00

Phew..Just gave my end term exam and now a 10 day break.. Lot of interesting incidents, a great batch and awesome campus..Quite lot of incidents..Below are a few quotable quotes which I came across in this term..

1. "Sir, When are you conducting the next surprise quiz ? " :-)

2. Company XYZ1, in the PPT .. "Sometimes work is 24x7..But it is satisfying" - WTF ???

3. A group giving a presentation - "Our presentation has 3 parts - Introduction, body & conclusion :-) "

4. Company XYZ2, in the PPT .. "Sometimes its a dog's life..But it is rewarding " :-)

5. "Guys..you have indulged in maal-practice :-) "

6. Prof( Asking a group which was doing a case analysis on Mountain Dew, with reference to the famous Cheetah Ad) : " How does the Ad signify the taste of Mountain Dew ? "

Presentor: " That, you'll have to ask to the Cheetah" :-)

----------------------

Mathewisms - Taken from prof. A.F Mathew's classes.. Seldom have I come across such an impactful personality. He taught us a course - Social transformation of India .. I'm not sure if I agree to all his arguments..But certainly he taught us many impactful stuff like the concept of caste and how entangled it in in polity & economy of India, how society evolved like this, Indian constitution and its formation..and many more stuff.. Around 10 movie screenings in the audi..some of them , quite impactful..

Above all that, he has given us two booklets with lot of articles..Of course, none of us read those before exams completely..But this would be an integral part in my personal library..Sometime when I'm free,I plan to read many of these again ..

Some of the quotable quotes from his class....

Prof : "If a girl sleeps with 10 guys, she'll be called a slut..But if a guy sleeps with 10 girls, what will you call him?"

Class : "Stud" :-)

Prof : " You havnt read Premchand ? My God...How can u call yourself an Indian ? Half your life is lost "

Prof: "The biggest problem that India is facing is........ Awasthi is sleeping :-)" ( Pointing to a guy dozing off in class ..This happened in another section..not my class..but this was a masterpiece )

Prof: "You...you single celled protozoa.." ( pointing to a guy )

Prof: "He is in a trance "( Pointing to me ,when I was dozing off :-) )

Prof ( While explaining sexuality ) : "Read -some purana story name - .. It is much better than surfing porn in internet "

Prof: "look at Ajith...he's comes dressed up...probably put lacto calamine lotion..and ponds face powder "

Ajith

The Question Of Ethics

2008-08-31T14:51:00.006+04:00

"How ethical are you ?" ..This is a question which quite a few people have asked me after coming here..Infact almost every mock interview / committee interview at IIMK had this question..

Long back during my schooling and early college life, I considered smoking & drinking as totally wrong and unethical ... I no longer hold that perspective.. I still dont smoke( but I do take couple of pegs :) ) ... The way I look at people have undergone a sea change.. Similarly, I considered abstaining from seeing pornographic movies as an ethical way of life..but thankfully or otherwise, those myths got busted early in NITC life itself :-) ...similarly many more stuff...

If you have are caught in a situation where in you have to tell a lie to defend a promise,what would you do ? Most of us would tell the lie so that the promise holds... This might seem trivial, but few years back i was in such a situation which resulted in a big change in my life... Now when I look back to that episode, I think I would have handled it in a more mature way..Maybe declining to answer the question, or even managing my way out of the situation..

I still see pirated movies, I still use pirated software... So,that way, I'm not ethical. In IIMK, a significant ethical conflict that I've felt till now was over free-riding ( i.e, in a project group , you just relax, let others do the task ) .. No matter however talented you are, the pressures in a B-school makes you freeride in one project or the other regularly..

The values that an individual subscribes to undergoes lot of changes as he/she progresses in life..But then,there are some core values that remain more or less same... Its not easy to enumerate those core values... maybe a sense of equity,consideration for common good,being true to oneself etc... Over those, I still feel I'm the same .

Ajith

B-school Life - Part II

2008-08-10T15:30:00.004+04:00

Certain observations/happenings/realizations/updates over Life @ IIMK .

* I get up a day and struggle to realize which day it is..i.e, whether it is a sunday or friday or any other weekday, all are more or less equal now with workload.

* I thought I'm decent in time management skills..Apparently, first month here has proved otherwise :-) ..I've missed quite a few things which I wouldn't have otherwise.

* I buy Business Line & The Hindu..But unable to read those on most days..And I'm running out of space to put all those newspapers.

* As a consequence of the above factor and my reluctance to clean, my room looks more or less like a dumping ground of newspapers, articles and books :-(

* My home is just 22 KM from here and I have a bike..But have gone there only for a few hours in last one month.

* I was caught sleeping in the class quite a few times..And the fact that my name begins with letter 'A' ensures that I'll have to sit in the front row..I'm eagerly awaiting for term 2 to start as my seat will be moved to the last row :-) ... And yeah, there is an MMS circulating in campus in which I was caught sleeping in class :-)

* B'coz of the above factor, I've decided that I'd not name my kid with a name starting with letter 'A'.. No matter however good the lecture is, you can't help sometimes ..

* 2 AM is the normal time to sleep now..And some days, it extends past 4 AM .

* There are quite a few opportunities in an IIM..But a day has only 24 hrs out of which you have to sleep for atleast 4 hrs .

* I see quite a few people getting too much upset over small reverses like bad exams, less marks, disproportionate rewards etc... But life is more than all these.

* A key learning - Even if you have nothing substantial to submit, its important to format it properly :-)

* And yeah, I won an election to get into Students' Council :-)

Part 1 of B-school life Linked here

Ajith

Time..Opportunities...Regrets ?

2008-07-28T13:27:00.005+04:00

At certain points in life you feel you should have done something a tad earlier..I was almost certain that this feeling was to strike at me some point or other during this 2 year course...It did,though from an unexpected angle/source... Last week I came across 2 situations, wherein I would have had more freedom had I finished my education one/two years before.. And one of those did put me into a deep & prolonged thought..

Certain actions might seem illogical..But, not everything in life can be explained rationally/ logically..I'm thinking of resorting to an irrational action ... something that seems outrightly childish.. But, my heart asks me to try my luck :-) .

( PS:- This is not to discourage anyone having significant workexp from doing MBA..Infact, workexp makes you more mature and your takeaways from MBA would be much higher... All thoughts and actions contemplated are from a strict personal perspective )

Ajith

The Six-Degrees Principle

2008-07-19T20:18:00.003+04:00

Orkutting is fun..Its even funnier with this thing called 'mutual friends'..I know that it is not recent, but still there are a couple of interesting stuff thats associated with this..

There is something called as 'Six-degrees of separation' .. What it means is not that every two guys in world would be connected by 'six hops'.. It just says that the average number of 'hops' would be six.. There have been experiments to verify this concept in facebook, where the average hop-length turned out to be 5.73 ( Strong validation , I should say )

In the last couple of months, my orkut friends list increased from sub-300 levels to 470+ ( and still growing ) owing to IIMK admission..I've started looking into the mutual friends list whenever I get a new connection..And there have been instances when I got literally startled like
" Oh..How does he know HER ? ".. OR .. "Oh..man, she knows that bugger? How come? "...This sense of strangeness is quadrupled when u do random orkuting clicking on someone's profile ( I used to do this when I had ample free time in Oracle..but thats not the case anymore :( ) ..then clicking on their 'interesting' friends..and so on.. And u end up at a chick's profile ..but invariably, there would be some guy who'd be there in the mutual friends list...

Had orkut given a feature in which u can enter two orkut profile URLs and check if they are connected or not , it would have been even more interesting.. Eitherway, owing to these social networks, I've started to look for these 'degrees of separation' more often.. And as MBA students, we are told to do more and more networking..Though that doesnt mean just expanding the linkedin / facebook / orkut networks, this has become an integral part of it..

This is actually creepy at times..Like, after 10 years, when the social networks somehow use a common underlying platform & open communication APIs, practically every two individuals in any corner of the world could be connected in 'six hops' .. And if you want to know how social networking thing can affect your marriage chances, check this entertaining post by Vinay :-) .. There are people who do evaluation of potential partner by extensive 'orkut-research' and even for that matter 'scrapbook-research'. These people have been severely affected since orkut came up that security features and all..But I'm sure that people would find alternate, if not better ways :-)

PS:- I've quite a few tasks whose deadlines are tomorrow 23.59 PM and quite a few subjects to prepare for monday... But I knew I just had to post this regardless of whatever stuff thats pending... because without constant updates on this blog, I wouldn't just be myself... And I dont want that to happen.

Ajith

The B-school Life

2008-07-05T15:15:00.002+04:00

So, 3 weeks here @ IIMK and I finally get some time to blog... There is nothing very particular that I plan to blog..All are kind of arbitrary..

Often many of us ( including me ) tend to think that our life has been tough and we didnt get what we deserved.. Here, I've met some individuals who have fought of ( or, are still fighting off ) lot of adversities. And compared to them, atleast my difficulties seemed to be trivial.. I tend to realise that the difficulties faced by each of us are kind of unique..And there is no point in benchmarking those..
So, what else are the changes that have come up in me ?

-- The total intake of tea & coffee ( Unlike quite a few people, I drink both ) has increased exponentially
-- I dont feel like sleeping till atleast 1AM ( excluding the time that I doze off in class :-) )
-- There are basically two choices here..Either insulate yourself and concentrate on studies or study a bit and enjoy the life here.. Though I had intentions of slogging when I came here, I quickly dropped off that idea and I'm enjoying my stay here.
-- I tend to find quite a lot of people who are better than me in each and every thing..
-- "Rewards are rarely proportional to the efforts " .. Thats something that one needs to get into his/her mind to survive here. Fortunately, I've accepted this as a fact long time before itself.
-- I think time management would be perhaps my most significant takeaway from this course.
-- Quite a few people are complaining that I'm out of touch with them..I accept it..Time has a high premium value in this system.
-- "Even if you win this rat race, you are still a rat" :-)
-- Every other week, you have a party... And yeah, I still stop at 2 or 3 pegs :-)

Ajith

The Last 4 Years

2008-06-12T18:31:00.004+04:00

Totally random semi-philosophic post :-) .. Quite long too..Read if you have plenty of time and no other work to do .

There was a mail which I sent to a select group of friends four years back when I graduated..It was about what I learned about life during my graduation...Now , after another four years I'm again going back to college for my MBA . I think its time to have another writeup about my learnings during last four years of corporate life, both from a professional & personal perspective.. I'm putting those below.. This is all taken strictly from my perspective / learnings /conclusions.. I dont think many people might agree to all the points. Anyway, here it is..

1) Beyond a level, money would not bring you satisfaction..There is something called as concept of marginal utility in economics. ( You can google out the definitions )..The idea is something like this.. If you earn 3L , an increase in salary to 6L would bring you more satisfaction than what you will have if your salary increases from 1 Crore to 2 Crore. .. Basically, beyond a level, the power of cash to bring in additional satisfaction / completeness to your life drops drastically..But yes, you need a basic level of money ( which varies from person to person depending on his/her lifestyle ) ..beyond that, there is no point in chasing money..

2) 'Work Satisfaction' is often a myth / mirage :-) .. There should be some level of professional satisfaction, but people who jump from companies to companies in search of this 'work satisfaction' are not likely to find it anywhere in the long run.

3) This point might be of relevance to any fresher joining work -- In corporate life, its not enough that you work..You often have to advertise your work. If I look among my friends who have had fantastic career growth in last 4 years or so, one thing that I find among them distinctly is their ability to network , establish contacts in higher positions/various divisions etc.. Their career growth is not because of their fantastic coding skills or anything like that.. Be it any profession/industry , its your social skills that matter the most ... I'm sure that more than 90% of the people who have worked for about 3yrs or more would definitely agree to this.

4) The last four years has been a stretch wherein my faith/belief in God has been tested a lot..I've failed in that. Its not that I'm totally agnostic now..But I've more or less stopped praying to God for something to happen..( though involuntarily, I tend to pray sometimes because of my upbringing ) ..Infact, 4 years back whenever I face a problem, first thing that I used to do was to pray to God ..I no longer do that , though I often express my goodwill to God if something good happens :-) ... I dont know if this is good or bad..But certainly , at this point in life, I no longer have a blind faith that I've had 4 years before.. Infact, I feel that faith in something / someone can often lead to terrible disappointments.

5) Faith might not be a good thing to have, but 'hope' is a good thing to have ( Remember 'Shawshank Redemption' ) .. I do believe that life comes a full circle for some reason. If you have some good times now, its quite natural/certain that you will have bad times..And the reverse too. If you have had some bad times, certainly life would turnaround and you will have good times ( though this might not be perpetual ) .. And the key thing for this turnaround is 'hope' .. Hope or optimism has a strange power to motivate people to put in good effort.. If you keep up that hope, you can certainly cause good things to come in your life..

6) I've often asked myself what I should aim in life... I have not yet found out that..But I certainly feel that people would have a satisfied life if they engage themselves in quite a few things ( be it music / NGO / sports / community work /... ) and never 'retire' themselves .. A single minded focus on family + profession is quite likely to see you in a disappointed state sooner or later .. I know many people might disagree to this..I'm not saying you shouldnt care about these.. You should involve in other activities in addition to family & profession..

7) You can't plan your life realistically beyond a span of say, 2 years..In that sense, I've found all this MBA / MS 'statement of purpose' to be heights of nonsense..I think I myself tried different statement of purpose for different MBA interviews..And even after getting admission, I really dont think one should go in with a stereotyped mentality .. Its better to take decisions based on available options & situations rather than saying 'no' to all the possible chances (unless you are that precociously talented, wherein you can ace any test/interview that comes your way)

8) Its important to fail at some point(s) in life. Because,that itself is an experience.. That teaches you how to bounce back..how to correct yourself. And you should have the guts to admit a failure.

9) There is a statement in 'Dil Chahta Hai' that comes back to me again & again.. "Every action/decision by someone has a reason behind it" ( I forgot the Hindi wordings used in this scene..its when Amir Khan's father talks to him about why Preity Zinta doesnt want to marry him )
...Extending that, the reason behind an action by me might not be comprehensible to you..And a reason behind your action might not be comprehensible to me..Or rather, these buzzwords - rational , logical , common sensical -- all these vary from person to person to a great degree.. As an example when I say I've resigned from Oracle and am going to study, quite a few people think that I'm mad..quite a few people think that I'm right.. The point is, we too might be in a situation wherein we fail to appreciate the choice that another person is making.. But, we have to respect his/her choice because he/she will be having some reason behind that choice ( which, we might not be able to appreciate ) ..Arguments,debates ... all are fine..But once someone makes a decision, it is made.

10) Its important to enjoy the present, no matter however illustrious your past was / however promising your future is ... Certain things which your mind / conscience calls you to do, you just go ahead and do it..Dont bother about the expense / savings ( as long as you are not anywhere near bankruptcy :-) ) ..

11)I've come across many people who say "I've no regrets in life" ..If they really mean it, I envy them..I have plenty of regrets in life..I dont know if it is possible to be in a 'regret-less' state.. If it is, then i think I need to strive to reach that state.

12) This one is from public domain.. There is a common tendency among people to say that 'consensus should be achieved/majority opinion should be followed etc'.. But, be it in small teams or big nations, democracy might not result in good / correct things..As an example, I believe that Musharraf's rule is Pakistan is better for Indian security compared to a disjoint and weak democracy operating there..No matter however he manipulates the system to be at the helm, its often better to have a sensible man in control of the situation...The point to be kpet in mind is that, often we tend to think that somebody has taken a right solution, because it was the most democratic one..But democracy & correctness need not go together.

--- Ah enough nonsense..I guess I better stop.

( PS:- I'm not drunk :-) )

A Place That I'll Miss.

2008-05-31T21:20:00.004+04:00

"Eda..Coming with you to Landmark is like accompanying a lady to a Saree shop" .. I don't deny that .. And because of this, I dont drag people to this place :-)

As I'm packing up my stuff to leave b'lore, I calculated an approximate sum of money that I had spent @ Landmark over the last two years..That would definitely come to about Rs.22,000+ i think ...People ask me why don't I go and buy second hand books that would come damn cheap ...Well, All I can say is, certain questions does not have logical answers.. the atmosphere @ Landmark is a factor..the awesome collection that they have is another.... maybe that 'freshness' in a book would be another...
But rather than all that I'd say, its not possible to rationally or logically substantiate all your actions in life.. Certain things you do because you just want to do those...And you shouldnt restrict yourself from doing those because, you might regret later in life..

( For the Unititiated, LandMark is an amazing books + vcd/dvd + electronic items + .... quite a few items ... showroom in Forum, B'lore )

System, Change , Efforts

2008-05-22T14:42:00.004+04:00

I went there with a desire to set winds for a change in a system..A system in which I'm going to have very minimal or practically nil stake..Five minutes into the process, I realize that I'm banging my head against a brick wall...When the underlying realities are harsh, words cannot be music to ears... Essentially at some point, I felt its not going to be of much use... The atmosphere is no longer cordial.. I lost interest.. Left the effort..Played on through the process..And it got over.

When I think about it, I still ask myself... In such situations, should one persist and argue over things ? The downside of this being that the cordiality would be more broken than you can amend..And it goes against my 'God-father' principles .. What matters in life the most is your contacts & friends...And you shouldn't antagonize anyone for needless things... But then, it wasnt a needless thing..Its something that I really wanted to see happening, though I wouldn't gain much from it.... Either way, I think I need to improve in communicating certain things.

Ah..Enough philosophy..People are saying I'm a bit too philosophical nowadays. :-)

Another Twist In Life

2008-05-06T18:04:00.003+04:00

A few posts through last few years in my life

Jan - 2 , 2006 :- IIMB PGP interview call
April - 11 , 2006 :- IIMB puts me in Waitlist - 47
May- 9 , 2006 :- Kicked out of Waiting list
----------------------------------------------------------
Nov-20, 2006 :- Better CAT papers..TIME,IMS predicts six calls based on a screwed verbal key
Jan - 8 ,2007 :- Kicks from all IIMs.. One of the most disappointing days in my life
April - 13, 2007 :- PGSEM interview
April - 30, 2007 :- Taking PGSEM but disappointment over PGP still persists
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jan -10 , 2008 : CAT - 2007 results ( L,K calls )
-- People Dont believe that I got this without any major preps..
But thats the truth .
April 11- 30 , 2008 : OBC quota issues, results delayed .
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
May - 1 : 2008

Congratulations Mr. AJITH PRASAD B !. You have been selected for admission to the Post Graduate Programme 2008-10 of IIM Kozhikode. Offer letter is being sent by speed post to your address.

The validity of the offer is subject to your Offer Acceptance Form (duly completed) with an amount of Rs. 65,000/- (Rupees Sixty five thousand only) towards advance for 1st Term fee and the course completion certificate (if you are yet to graduate) reaching the Admissions Office on or before May 19, 2008.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

A tail piece:- I know I wont be able justify many things that I did over this entire chase..But nevertheless, many actions in life cannot be explained fully... And I'm taking it. Its going to be IIMK for the next two years :-)

Ajith

The Beautiful Game Returns !!!

2008-04-30T21:51:00.007+04:00

I know it is a bit early..but couldn’t help. My soccer craze is sort of biennial .. Whenever World cup or Euro is round the corner, I dig up enough soccer material from net to add to the already esoteric collection of interests.. Euro-08, the once in four year soccer championship among European Nations will kick off in Austria & Switzerland coming June. So, this post is about soccer :)

( My “Ideal match” column in orkut profile has been reflecting the Euro – 08 interest ever since the tournament draw has been published :))

After having lived in a soccer-crazy engineering college campus where television broadcasts of non-descript matches in EPL & Italian League draw more attendance than lecture sessions, I’d say, club soccer has failed to captivate my interest. My knowledge in club soccer is largely superficial. I give a miss to even the champions league matches where perhaps the best individual soccer talents in the planet are showcased.. But, I’ve rarely missed any significant matches in any of the World cup soccer tournaments from USA -94 ( I still have some memories of Italia – 90 ) & Euro tournaments from England-96…I don’t know whats the reason for my non-interest towards club soccer…Maybe the nationalistic fervor in Euro & World Cup is at a different level.. But whatever be it, I’m increasingly reading quite a few news items tracking Euro-08 and half-soccer crazy as of now :-)

Okay.. I’m not going to do any thread-bare analysis of strengths of different teams and all..but still a bit of analysis ..

My logical bet for this Euro - Italy

With their core World cup winning squad intact & with Alex Del Piero in blazing form in Italian league, I’d put my money on them , though I don’t really like their way of play.. But solid..really solid team, unfortunately in a very tough group with Netherlands , Romania & France.. Hope they clear the group stage :-)

The team which I want to win – Czech Republic

Caveat :- Only if they manage to get Pavel Nedved back into the team.

Reason – Nedved, one of the most gifted and accomplished players of his generation in club soccer deserves something better in international soccer..I still remember that amazing match in last world cup where an inspired Italian defence marshalled by Cannavaro kicked Czechs out of the world cup.. And last Euro, wherein his injury limped him off the field in that semi final against Greece..The current Czech captain , Tomas Rosicky ( another of my favorite players ) is nursing an injury and because of that , calls for Nedved to come back to the team has intensified .. Retired from international soccer , but playing in Italian league in a good way, I hope he does a ‘la Zidane act and carries Czechs all the way to glory :-).

( PS – Pavel Nedved is one of the very few soccer communities that I’m a member of in orkut )
(PPS - If Nedved & Rosicky are not there, my support goes to Netherlands :-) )

The Dark Horses

An unlikely pick, but my vote goes for Romania in this category.

Reason :- I just love their style of play.. Fast, classy,superb..Romania was one of the teams which really caught my attention way back in US-94 WC..The golden generation of George Hagi is gone..but new players , same style..capable of bringing in a few upsets, but unfortunately drawn into the toughest group for preliminary round..But they are in good form too :)

A Tail Piece

-- No matter who wins, the game is beautiful as a lovely lass :) ..Or in title words, "The Beautiful Game Returns" :-)

Ajith

Irritated :(

2008-04-24T08:32:00.003+04:00

They say two weeks :( ... And chances of further slippings.. Things getting tight by every passing day... Hmmmm.... I wish I could give some satire links..but, then it would become a different ball game .

(PS:- Sorry..No explanations can be offered :( )

Ajith

Cafe Coffee Day & IT Professionals

2008-04-04T16:35:00.003+04:00

These two snaps describe what happens when a group of IT pros , empowered with Sodexho coupons visit CCD :-) ..One glass of "iced eskimo ...." ( none knew what it was :-) ) shared using 4 straws. CCD people would have been accustomed to couples using two straws in one glass..But this would have been something new to them :-) ..

And yeah, post won't be complete without how we paid them...
Hail Sodexho :-)

History, Jodha Akbar & Movie Scripts

2008-03-28T21:15:00.001+04:00

Given my penchant for historical movies, I couldnt miss Jodha-Akbar for too long..Finally saw that last weekend @ INOX . I'm not going to write a big review about that..There are plenty of funny reviews available on net like this one :-) ..

The movie is actually pretty average...like a semi-documentary.. The songs were good..especially I liked the 'Khwaja mere Kwaja...' one very much..And yeah, Aiswarya Rai still looks too good in some sequences :-) ..The camera work in battle sequences left a lot to be desired..Nothing much exceptional there..The last fight was a badly imitated one from Troy ( Hector - Achilles ) ..

An interesting thing which caught my attention in this movie is how the prince/princess type people get privacy.. Usually they'll be surrounded by many servants ..and when the possibility of romance comes, they just have to shout "Ekaant" .. Thats an interesting way :-)
----------------------------------

This is movie which has raked up many protests in Rajasthan because some believe 'Jodha' is the name of Akbar's mother, not wife.. Infact many historical movies released in India have been dogged by such controversies. Even if their arguments are true, this is actually a very silly controversy..The fact that Akbar had a Rajput wife has been documented beyond doubt, only her name is uncertain..If I remember the old Mughal-E-Aazam correctly, it shows Akbar's wife as a Rajput princess.

This took my thoughts to a malayalam movie - 'Oru Vadakkan Veeragadha' , by MT Vasudevan Nair. One of the most critically acclaimed , yet very much popular movie in Malayalam movie history.. This is a movie in which MT showed a Villain in folklore history in a positive light.. Infact, the impact of the movie has been such that if you quiz an average Keralite about this folklore story, he's quite likely to tell MT's version. The story runs from the anti-hero's ( played by Mammootty ) perspective and it gives various explanations to all the wrong deeds that the he's accused off in the folklore story... That is actually historical fiction at its best. And it created no controversy !!! ..

I'm just wondering , are there any good English movies in which this kind of "anti-hero in real life to hero in reel life" transformations have been attempted ?
The scale of historical fiction that I'm looking for is something akin to what would happen if someone portrays the 'Jackal' in the 'Day of the Jackal' as a hero..

--------------------------------
Off track Request :- Please help this mallu {fraud} to break his bachelor life by finding the girl he has mentioned :-)
--------------------------------

Numbers...More Numbers

2008-03-22T16:35:00.004+04:00

There is a trivial part in 'A Beautiful Mind', the Oscar winning movie in which Russel Crowe plays the brilliant , but Schizophrenic mathematician John Nash...

The FBI/Pentagon intercepts some transmission containing lots of numbers, thrown over a large piece of paper/screen..Nobody is able to make out any sense out of it..They call John Nash..this guy stares at that for hours altogether..And finally shouts "Get me a map".. He then proceeds to interpret the numbers in the transmission as latitudes and longitudes of various places..

Now I didnt invent / discover anything like that...But in today's CorpFin class, my state was almost like those clueless FBI officials.. An excel spreadsheet with numbers and formula being displayed on the screen..prof making some calculations.. inflation, NPV, discount rate, IRR .. numbers throughout that excel .. 1.3231, 23.2435 , 343.211 , 1.321 ...... It made some sense to some people.. But it reaffirmed one of those old inferences that I made about myself.. I'm not good for Finance... I love maths , but not this type of number crunching.. Gimme geometry/trigonometry , I'll do..but not this type of raw number crunching..But unfortunately no one has discovered much applications for geometry in management i think.

On a different note, I've just started reading George Soros' 'The Crisis of Global Capitalism' ..I'd recommend it to anyone having even a fleeting interest in Economics

Ajith

For NITC Alumni,

2008-03-19T16:23:00.002+04:00

NITC/CREC Alumni , Please check

http://nit-calicut.blogspot.com/2008/03/important-studentnitc-needs-assistance.html

Thanks,
Ajith

A Sense Of Loss !!!!

2008-03-13T18:46:00.005+04:00

I get nostalgic frequently.. Some people say it is a sign of aging :-).. Last time when I visited NITC, this feeling was at its peak.. Now, the spark is something totally different..Called up home yesterday..Amma told me that our ancestral home ( 'tharavadu' - in malayalam ) is going to be demolished and built again.. That is about 50+ years old and the building is literally crumbling..75 % of the area inside the home gets drenched during rainy season as the old roofing is slowly giving up to its 'wear-and-tear'.. And it is literally not possible to stay there during monsoon time.. And if it stays like this for 3 more seasons , it may collapse itself.. So , definitely from a logical perspective it makes sense to pull it down and build it again...

But even after all logical explanations, I dont know how to express the kind of emptiness that I feel when I hear that it is being demolished.. This place used to be the gathering point of a very large family...During my schooling , I used to frequent to this place on every vacation...Cousins and relatives spread throughout India, and some abroad used to come to this home during their vacations.... It used to be a sort of magnet if I can term it that way.. That place wont be the same again... Today I tried explaining the reasons to a cousin.. Though she expressed the very same kind of emptiness, I sort of tried to put up a logical perspective...I'd say, after a long time, I tried not to be true to myself in a conversation for some reason or other..

Whatever..

Change...The constant denominator of Life ..Sigh!!!
====================================================
It takes some courage to smile after tragedies..And people who do that are
really great.. A great tribute to a mother from a daughter .
I somehow admire this character.
====================================================
Ajith

Theyyam - A good video

2008-02-26T08:07:00.002+04:00

This gives a good preview of a traditional art form in Kerala - Theyyam.
Its not just the visualization that makes it unique..Superb narration, background music ..All in all, a wonderful video if u know malayalam..This took me back to those wonderful school days when I really liked those malayalam poems/verses.

Ajith

In Search For an Aim

2008-02-17T21:35:00.002+04:00

I've realized something over the last few days.. Unless I have a specific aim(s) , my life is kind of dull.. Infact, if I see no direct utility/purpose in what I'm studying , I tend to take it easy.. I tend to do well in subjects to which I can attach a certain personal/entrepreneurial interest ( not those which may help me in work ) .. During the last week's exam preps, I kept thinking again and again whether these type of complicated formulations would help me in anyway.. Even when I kept telling myself that these may help me at a later point, which I cannot forsee now, I somehow couldnt instil enough interest in myself..

It took back my thought process to a time when I was perhaps in a most inspired/motivated state ..That was during IIT-JEE preps.. Even though I couldnt get in , I still remember that entire period of 2 years during +2 was perhaps the happiest period in my life..And a major reason for that happiness was this motivated state.. or rather obsession with that IIT brand.

After that, further aims/goals/ all have come in my life..but none has motivated me as strong as that IIT dream had at that ripe young age.. Achieved some aims,missed some.. I won't put the cliched saying of 'no regrets' here..I have my own share of regrets :-), but the point is not that..its that for getting back that excitement, I need to set some aim / goal / vision...Again I might not be able to pull back that IIT level motivation..but need to set something thats good enough to motivate me to a decent level..

Current mood :- Highly Arbit & somewhat philosophic

Trouble with a name

2008-01-26T20:24:00.000+04:00

I'm in an interesting situation... Few years back during my schooling , I came across a guy 'X' who played certain pranks on me..The pranks were not that serious , but sort of irritating enough for me to remember this guy even now... Much later I came across another guy 'Y', who really made some trouble in my life/career at-least indirectly.. And I was seriously irritated with him then.. Whether the changes that I made to get away from 'Y' was good or bad is another debatable thing.. But whatever, the connection between 'X' and 'Y' is that they share the same first name.

Now, I'm increasingly interacting with another guy 'Z' - who shares the same first name.. Rationally there is no reason why I should be hesitant in interacting with him..but as some people say, intuition or gut-feeling is telling me to be extremely careful while dealing with 'Z' ... I'm just wondering .. have any of you been in such a situation ? Isn't it wonderful seeing the way our brain picks up patterns and interprets it..I mean, there is nothing else common between X,Y & Z except for the name.. But still the warning signals come from deep inside ... Got to see how it goes. :)

Ajith

NITC Special ==> Lost Symbols ?

2008-01-15T13:01:00.000+04:00

Alright , here’s the NITC special post. The usual disclaimers apply.. This might seem extremely irrelevant for all Non-NITC/CREC visitors to my blog.

Date of visit : Jan – 6, 2008

Quite a lot of things have changed since my last visit.. As I remarked in my last post, I was here for attending the wedding reception of my batch-mate, Ibrahim.. The first sight that kind of ignited the old memories…

(1) Mamachan’s Ruins è http://picasaweb.google.com/ajithprasadb/NITC/phot o#5154167544479834402

They have moved a little bit ahead

(2) The New Mamachan’s location è http://picasaweb.google.com/ajithprasadb/NITC/photo#5154167565954670898

After this, I stepped into the campus through the rear gate
(3) This place hasn’t changed much..Isn’t it ?

http://picasaweb.google.com/ajithprasadb/NITC/photo#5154167596019441986

Buildings everywhere!.. I lost count of the number of hostels that the college has..There
a new PG hostel, old PG modified, F’ ( F-dash , in NITC lingo ) extended to three floors, G ( which was almost complete when I graduated , two new ones behind that ( almost on the verge of completion ) ..Seriously are there this much students in NITC? There is a block each for the CSC & Electronics dept that has come up behind the old dept locations.

(4) http://picasaweb.google.com/ajithprasadb/NITC/photo#5154167626084213074

(5) http://picasaweb.google.com/ajithprasadb/NITC/photo #5154167647559049570

(6) http://picasaweb.google.com/ajithprasadb/NITC/photo#5154167677623820658 – That’s the new CC ( almost behind the basket ball court ).. I peeked into it.. Most were orkutting :-)

I couldn’t go to valley..It seems that’s now off-bounds for students after some ‘incidents’ there :-) .. Basically to get into that entire walled area on the other side of road enclosing staff quarters, LH etc, u need to write ur name with security , take permission and stuff like that.. So, didn’t go there..

(7) http://picasaweb.google.com/ajithprasadb/NITC/photo#5154167699098657154 – That’s our gang who came for the reception

This sight pained me….No..not the basky court.. but behind that.. The FBG is lost !!! Some international library complex is coming up… Not that I was a football player.. but, this was one of the unique symbols in NITC.. The monsoon cup matches..Where do those take place nowadays ? In 12^th mile ?

(8) The MB triangular notice board è http://picasaweb.google.com/ajithprasadb/NITC/photo#5154167780703035826

I don’t know much about the incident ..May his soul rest in peace..

(9) Ah.. Our department è http://picasaweb.google.com/ajithprasadb/NITC/photo#5154167815062774210

(10) ..Finally we sat on front bench è http://picasaweb.google.com/ajithprasadb/NITC/photo#5154167832242643410

(11) This I took from Civil dept notice board è http://picasaweb.google.com/ajithprasadb/NITC/photo#5154167896667152898

Basically talks about the list of projects done by some students under’Centre for value Education’ – I wonder if I can read those reports somehow..Sounds interesting ..

(12)In front of old CC è http://picasaweb.google.com/ajithprasadb/NITC/photo#5154168051285975698

That’s closed now..Once that new library complex comes up, I wonder whats going to happen to this building ..

(13) Any idea whats this è http://picasaweb.google.com/ajithprasadb/NITC/photo#5154168154365190882

That’s the new MC , opposite of C-hostel !!!.. And the old MC ?? Here is it è

http://picasaweb.google.com/ajithprasadb/NITC/photo#5154168240264536866

-- I don’t have much to say. Change is good….but then..I feel the heart and soul of NITC night life is gone L

As I drove back to Calicut, all those memories came…friendships, rivalries, arguments, grief , laughter ..Ah..those 4 years.. Those 4 years from which I learned a lot.. Moments when I felt I had lost everything..Moments when I felt I had conquered everything…Illusions…Sigh!!!

The complete album at http://picasaweb.google.com/ajithprasadb/NITC/

Ajith

Economics,Girl Friends & Tata's Nano

2008-01-11T13:06:00.000+04:00

I had to post this.. Or rather rediff gave me an opportunity ..See this news

-- Impressed by Tata's One Lakh car, Sanjay Dutt chose that to gift a Tata Nano to his girl friend Manyata.. It also reports that he chose Nano over a 4 Crore car :-).. I wonder what Manyata's reaction was when she heard this 4 Crore - 1 Lakh swap ..Or call it economics of love .. Assuming he had 4 Crore money for this purpose, he can split it and give it to 400 girl-friends, past present and future..

Makes sense..Isn't it ?

Time Value

2008-01-10T10:12:00.000+04:00

No..I'm not cribbing about the time that I lose..But a different thing.... Something for which I yearned two years before didn't materialize then, but it did now..And now I'm in an entirely different situation...It the sense,it would have made me ecstatic two years back..but it is kind of making me indifferent now... Hmmm..Got to think .

On another note..Who said two wrongs doesnt make a right ? It does atleast in software..
"Wrong Code + Wrong Test Case = Expected Results " -- I got that yesterday..Fortunately was easy to fix..

And over the NITC trip that I was talking about in last post - We went..But I need a big post and more time to describe those..Would do in a week :-)

Ajith

Another One Bites The Dust :)

2007-12-30T20:51:00.000+04:00

Another one from our B-tech batch losing his bachelor status.. My project partner (a.k.a partner in fraud ) Ibrahim getting married on Jan-6.. He's special in many ways..

-- Only student in perhaps the entire NITC history to have his home nearer than hostel from class.( his home is couple of plots behind Mamachan)
-- Even with that proximity , he took a room in hostel with the intention of studying :-)
-- He studied quite a bit..And at the end of 4th year, he became an expert in FIFA-2000 :-) .
-- NITC Football captain with a rather awesome victory streak in Calicut league :-).
-- Now enrolled in M-tech @IITK, he aspires to come back to NITC and join there as a lecturer few years down the lane..I sincerely wish he succeeds in that.

( Hopefully he won't read this post :-) )

His wedding ( or rather reception ) gives me another opportunity to visit NITC Campus..I'm off to Calicut on coming saturday eve... Last time I visited college was in Feb-07 for Raagam.. Heard quite a few changes have come up in campus. So,would be back next week with some snaps from NITC and hopefully some campus gossips :-)

..And yeah, Happy new year to all

Ajith

The Alchemy Of Wrong Times

2007-12-26T20:32:00.000+04:00

When do you realize that you are going through a bad patch ?

-- When you take a wrong turn at a very familiar traffic junction..
-- When you get problems from the least expected sources..
-- When things which you'll normally do within an hour takes you about one day..
-- You blog when you should be sleeping..
-- When everything that u do hit one roadblock or other..
-- When you forget things that you should be remembering
-- When even your cellphone fails ( My motoming is getting switched off automatically
once in a while..any pointers to probable reasons?? )

Suggested solutions by various people

-- Take a beer :-) ..( New yr party coming up :-) )
-- Be professional..Do one task at a time and be focussed on it.. ( I try to do that ..but in the long run, man is not a machine )
-- Assume nothing is wrong..Do things the way you do ( Thats a good one..but things will go on till one thing or other breaks down )
-- Find a girl ( I remember a famous quote which someone forwarded -- " Statistically every average looking girl in b'lore has atleast two boyfriends and 4 other guys who claim to be her boyfriends " ..I don't want to add more chaos :-) )
-- Travel ( Just back from a 4 day break which involved quite a lot of travel )
-- Blog these things ( Yeah..thats what I'm doing )

Ajith

The Dairy Circle Junction

2007-12-18T09:07:00.000+04:00

This is a unique place in the road-map of Bangalore ..or even in India.. The unique features of this place ..

1) This is a four-way junction under a flyover and over an under-pass with 8 roads , 2 each in each direction , all one-ways with well visible & working signals..Technically a well-thought about and well-designed traffic plan - an extremely rare piece of engineering in India perhaps ..

2) 90% of the people don't bother about the signals at this place.. Even if the signal is green, you'll have to look to all four directions and then take your vehicle. All are alike in breaking signals at this place..bike riders, auto-wallahs , bus/car/lorry - drivers and even cyclists.

3) Only place where you can see vehicles taking all possible directions and U-turns simultaneously even if the signal is red .

-- See the snap of this place..Taken at a time when there is not much traffic..but you can still see vehicles moving in all directions.. I'll upload another one once I get a full-traffic-jam picture at this location.. Sigh!!!.. Games Indians Play ...Also, read Vinay' post about driving at this place..

Ajith

Off-track news :- Nayantara is 'hot' in Billa :)

Dilbert pokes fun @ IIT again :-)

2007-12-10T13:07:00.000+04:00

Scott Adams comes back to the IIT topic again..See the latest strip @ http://www.dilbert.com/comics/dilbert/archive/dilbert-20071210.html ( Link Will be active for about a month ) .. The intern Ashok claims to have learned "Guided Reincarnation & Advanced Shape Shifting " ( Phew !! ) @ IIT .. Some of Dilbert's best IIT linked comic strips can be located @ http://www.cse.iitb.ac.in/~ajitb/dilbert.html

People have varying opinions about this IIT aspect in Dilbert..Some say it is a testimony to the success of the IIT system...Some say he's being sarcastic beyond a limit.. But either way, it is a good stress-reliever :-) ..

Ajith

Why I didn't study Computer Science further ??

2007-12-06T17:52:00.000+04:00

I keep getting this question again & again from various quarters..professors, friends, relatives, acquaintances .. when they hear that I'm studying management.. Recently a lady whom I knew during Pre-degree popped the same question "Why I didnt study Computer science/Technical Stream further ? " .. The reasons are a lot.. I'm describing it in a nutshell below. These views/experiences are extremely personal and if it offends anyone studying technical stream/ Computer science, sorry for that...

1) A good portion of research in Computer Science happens in areas which does not have the potential to do any immediate benefit to human beings..I mean, algorithms, theory of computation, graph theory etc..Even if you theoretically establish something new, it may take generations for it to be of any good use to an average human being... And I'm not that innovative or extra-ordinarily talented to something really path-breaking ...

2) A good amount of thesis work in Computer Science happens by improving complexities of existing algorithms.. And that too at an extremely low level of performance improvement.. I didnt find those attractive..

3) There is something called Chaos Theory in physics.. It deals with things like "how a bird's wing-flapping in Philippines would cause a hurricane in Argentina" and stuff like that..I strangely felt studying advanced theoretical computer science was somewhat like that..Studying things that are of abysmally low use to general public..

4) Most of my studies in B-tech were focussed on how to get a job rather than how to appreciate the subject ( Not the fault of anyone else ..but personal reasons.. ) . I regret having had that attitude during those days.

5) I did attempt getting serious into studies , reading a lot on subjects , reading tech-journals etc from 2nd yr end and 3rd yr in engineering..partly to push up the grades to make me eligible for placement, partly to forget a personal problem.. Those were the days when placements where not expected to be that good ..Hence, I did put in lot of effort during those days..Got placed in Oracle somehow.. ( thats again a weird story ..would publish that later ) .. After that I decided to do a system-level B-tech Project to revive my passion in CS.. But exactly opposite of that happened.. The project report ( linked) might seem impressive..But I've to admit, this is perhaps the most fraud-project that I've ever done.. It does not mean that we didn't put in effort..we did..but we learned that it is extremely difficult to make hardware listen to what you have coded...This was the final nail in the coffin of CS :-) .. Strangely , this B-tech project turned out to be extremely popular.. After I passed out , I've got atleast about 3 / 4 phone calls or mails from students of different colleges in Kerala and NITC , who got 'inspired' by reading that report and wanted to do something like that ( I'm not bluffing here ..but I really find it intriguing about what is so inspirational in that report :-) )

6) Perhaps the only technical subject that I was really interested in my B-tech days was 'Digital Signal Processing' ..This I studied in third year as an elective..And this was the paper in which I got the maximum marks in my entire B-tech life .. 49/50 in sessionals and 92 /100 in finals .. Murali Sir took that and his style of teaching was extremely impressive.. Strangely the interest towards this died down very quickly in final yr..I don't know why..but it happened...Maybe I feel, if I had done my final yr project in something related to software aspects of DSP, story might have been a bit different..

7) I started to read a lot of general things starting in final year.. This somehow cultivated an interest towards management.. This I'll admit anyday, the fat-salaries in investment banking and all were never a determining factor..I'm not suited for that life.. Rather it was a desire to do something different..something useful to the society..People may argue what real help does MBA graduates do to the nation & society other than inflating the foreign exchange reserves.. But there are exceptions.. There are people who really do useful things after MBA . And management education , be it in any form , equips you really well for that..Its a different matter whether you really do something or not.. But it definitely prepares you. These 'realizations' ( some friends call it fallacies ) somehow fueled my desire to do a management degree..

8) Professional factors.. I definitely see lot of scope in ERP sector if you have work exp in that & have an MBA degree.. More than MS, MBA makes sense here.

-- Thats all I can recollect..I think I've covered most.

Ajith

How good is Amazon's delivery in India ?

2007-12-03T14:36:00.001+04:00

I see a lot of interesting books and DVD's on Amazon's site.. And quite a lot of them are not available in book-stalls in b'lore like Landmark.. How is Amazon's reliability over these online purchases ? I've stayed away from that mode of purchase after an irritating experience with Indiatimes .. And anyday, I'd prefer going to a huge bookstall like Landmark/Crosswords rather than buying online because of that atmosphere.. But, maybe owing to low demand, lot of books & DVD's are not available even in these top-class stores in India.. So, I'm thinking of trying Amazon..

If any of you are regular/one-time customers of amazon, could you please comment here or mail to ajithprasadb - at - gmail.com over their reliability/speed of delivery etc in India..

Thanks
Ajith

Capitalism at its best !!!

2007-11-28T10:24:00.000+04:00

See how a Wall-street investment banker addresses the queries of Ms. Pretty .
Have to appreciate her honesty though :) . Isnt it ? I thought of drawing a2x2 matrix over this..But would be an overkill.. :-) .

Ajith

An Interesting Interview

2007-11-23T17:55:00.001+04:00

In this age of social-networking , most of us would have got some survey links from friends who are doing their MBA courses.. Now,there is an interesting thing about these surveys..They are not just random questions. An ideal marketing survey is supposed to give you responses using which you should be able to derive some quantitative stats..There is a lot of thought process that goes into ( or, it is supposed to :) ) this question setting phase..

Leaving out the quantitative/marketing side, whenever one is conducting an interview the set of questions that he/she is asking should be ideal.. Often lot of interviews that come in top-notch magazines convey very little information..Infact an interview can be most useful only if the interviewee & interviewer are well prepared..And today, I came across such an interview . Thats a link in which Rashmi Bansal ( founder - jammag.com, IIMA alumnus ) interviews an IITB-IIMB alumnus Vibhor Agarwal , who quit his AT Kearney consulting job to take up his family business. The striking thing about this interview is the the set of questions.. Infact, the questions which she asked covered most of the aspects that is relevant to the context. Without that set of questions, I think the interview would have been a total waste.

Good job :)

Ajith

( PS:- This is my 100th post in this blog :) )

Entrepreneurship bug biting more NITCians

2007-11-15T15:14:00.000+04:00

This is about a venture started by two of my seniors ( Jeswin & Hemchand ) of NITC( erstwhile CREC ) - 02 batch. The venture is http://www.skillda.com . Its a professional networking site like Linked In.. However,I think they'll have to progress much to be anywhere near Linked In. If this attains a good critical mass, I guess they can think of selling this to Naukri/Monster etc ( just a personal opinion ) .. Anyway, worth a look right now..They have done the web-interface reasonably well and its pretty fast...Though don't expect much on the job/career front from that now.. But definitely worth a look :-)

Another venture owned by my immediate senior Zerin, an IIML passout is http://www.indigoedge.com/ ..This has been there for a while.

Interesting Times !!!!

Ajith

Devasuram -- A look back

2007-11-07T17:11:00.000+04:00

One of my friends pointed me to these you-tube links of an old Malayalam movie - Devasuram. One of my all-time favorites in Malayalam.. This rekindled lot of memories...I regard the lead character of this movie, Mangalassery Neelakantan played by Mohan Lal as perhaps the most masculine characterization in a malayalam movie ever.. Unlike the superhuman / super-action hero based movies which came after this, Neelakantan / Neelan is a typical character having his own vices ( perhaps a lot of them ) .. And it is these vices & mistakes in his life that adds more than a human touch to the story line.. There is a subtle distinction between masculineness and unrealistic superheros ..And perhaps this is best illustrated by Neelan & Karthikeyan ( the role played by Lal in the sequel to this movie - Ravanaprabhu ) ... Karthikeyan in Ravanaprabhu is portrayed as an invincible super action hero.. But Neelakantan in Devasuram is essentially human.. Yet reckless, brave & intense ..

Known to very few people, this is actually based on the story of a person named "Mullassery Raju" . The transition that happens in Neelakantan from a rogue village guy squandering away his property to a man of virtue and values is really superb. This transition is second to only to perhaps the transition shown in Kireedam ( again a Lal movie, which earned him Bharat award ) ...

Current music : "Sooryakireedam..."

Ajith

The Waste Dumping Story

2007-10-25T09:41:00.000+04:00

Earlier this week, I got this link from a friend. It tells about an incident where customs authorities seized some containers at Cochin, which were supposed to contain brown paper mix, but actually contained municipal waste from NewYork.. These are a few more subsequent links from other media [1] , [2] and [3] . The third link cites the name of the company which 'exported' this waste as 'Belsun Corp' .

I dug in a little bit into this using Google. I couldn't find the any website for this 'Belsun Corp'. However, this link gives details about its operations in NewYork. It seems it has been in operations since 2000 ( How much Garbage would they have 'exported' to India ?? ) . However, the striking thing is that its president seems to be an Indian ( Sanjay Kedia ) .A google search on Sanjay Kedia listed threw even more interesting results . Now, there is no way that we can conclusively establish that the 'infamous' Sanjay Kedia and the Belsun's Sanjay Kedia are same. After attending the Statistics classes by Prof: Shankar Venkatagiri @ IIMB , I know the pitfalls of going into such generalizations and gut feel even based on comparable backgrounds .. Hence , I'm a little bit reluctant to conclude that both Sanjay Kedias are same based on those Google searches.

However, another Google search on 'Belsun Corp' resulted in this link .Thats a PDF filed with SEBI - Securities & Exchange Board of India by an Indian company , Sarju International .They claim that Belsun is their subsidiary . Whats the most disturbing from these facts are that, this actually seems to be a big racket organized by Indians themselves to 'import' garbage from abroad to here ( as if the garbage here is not enough ) . As I've heard all political parties are up in arms in Kerala against the "imperialist western world" for dumping their waste to developing nations ( Have they declared a Bandh ?? ). Little do they realise that Indians themselves form an integral part of this racket.. Obviously as developed cities pay people huge money to dispose their municipal waste, it is an extremely lucrative thing for people to collect money from there , import municipal waste to here and throw it here and there in cities like Cochin. The Cochin firm which handled the 'client operations' is 'Kochin Kadlas' ( no worthy google links for this )

Though belatedly , SC has criticized Center over its failure on issues like this . I sincerely wish at-least this issue is well-handled & implemented.. These municipal waste could be one of the main sources of diseases like Dengue & Chikungunya which spread far and wide across the southern states sometime back.

India has enough waste to dispose or reprocess..Why for a few bucks these people are doing all this nonsense, which'll ultimately cause great harm to themselves ? In this connection, its worthy to read about Alang , the largest ship-breaking port in the world itself located in Gujarat. The wikipedia link has enough information about that.. Alang is another instance where the cost-advantage and lax environmental regulations bring money, but cause great harm to the Nation.

( Updated later: All Google Ads appearing for this post seems to be from various waste-management companies.. This is the first time I'm getting such a high correlation between the content in the post and the Ads appearing. I never knew that this waste management is such a thriving industry in the West.. Who knows how many Belsun Corps are there among these ..Sigh!!! )

Ajith

Any takers for Vidya Balan :-) ?

2007-10-18T15:29:00.000+04:00

Quoting the ubiquitous Masala news paper - TOI report about Vidya Balan, "does she have anyone special? Nobody. That’s because most of the people I work with are either married or have girlfriends. So I guess I will have to look outside the industry more sincerely, she says." .... Well..by any chance is she looking towards software sector :-) ? ..

Also read this link too. Quoting TOI again "I've been single for too long:Vidya" ... Tempting ..Isn't it ?

PS - I love the way these people report and make masala news :-)

PPS - Current music - " Pal pal pal pal ...... "

Ajith

NITC - Code of conduct

2007-10-16T12:22:00.000+04:00

Couldn't resist posting about this.. Got a mail in NITC alumni group about the 'code of conduct' published recently in NITC..The document link is this

Some quotable quotes from the pdf ..

1. "Students are expected to spend their free time in the Library/Reading Room.
They shall not loiter along the verandahs or crowd in front of the offices or the
Campus roads. Students should refrain from sitting on places such as parapets,
stairs, footpaths etc"

-- Sitting in Raj-path & "looking around" used to be one of the favorite time pass of NITC'ians (or CREC'ians ) from long time back itself.. I wonder who's going to enforce this.. Are they going to appoint someone who'll chase out the students from Raj-Path in a typical school master style ?

2. "NITC Campus is a “Smoking free Campus”. "
-- I didnt know that :) ..I'm not a smoker, but I really don't find anything wrong in someone smoking within their confines.

3. "Silence shall be maintained in the premises of the Institute "
-- The best way to do this would be to appoint a class leader and ask them to note down the names of students who break the silence and hand it over to the director himself ..God save them :)

4. "Possession or consumption of narcotic drugs, tobacco, alcohol and other
intoxicating substances are strictly prohibited in the Campus and hostels."
-- Drugs, yes they should be banned .. Alcohol, I don't think. But then thats a highly subjective opinion.

5. "Politically based students’ and other organizations or outfits are not allowed
in the Campus. Students are strictly prohibited from organizing, attending or
participating in any activity or agitation sponsored by politically based
organizations."
-- A point which I agree whole-heartedly .. If there is something that still differentiates NITC from other engineering colleges , its the absence of strikes for totally ridiculous reasons.

6. The most funny one .. " The possession, distribution or
exhibition of any item by any means which is per se obscene is prohibited
within the Campus or on any property owned/ managed by the Institute. "

-- For people who don't know the facts : Be it anytime, its very easy to locate a humongous
collection of categorized porn ( by any variety - x, xx, xxx, actors , country , type ...... ) in any engineering college LAN . So, if your son comes and tells you that he hasn't seen any porn movie or part of it in his 4 yrs of engineering college life, there are 3 possibilities

(a) He's lying
(b) Something is wrong either physically or mentally with him
(c) He's trying to be extremely ethical and is likely to be a very big failure in life unless he changes himself . ( this is perhaps the most problematic category )

A Tail-piece

Nobody would succeed in life just by scoring a very high CGPA or by getting a top-notch job..If that is your sole aim in college,you are on an awfully wrong track.. Infact to succeed( or rather survive ) in corporate world itself, you need skills to understand , interact and work with people. I believe my biggest gains from NITC was the ability to interact with different people, different situations, and handle failures.. I wouldn't say I've been extremely successful in that..But those lessons still stays with me.. Life is not all about meritocracy..There is much more to it.

By churning out an academically supernatural, but otherwise dud 'species' , college would be doing much harm to the students than good.

Ajith

Media Conclave @ IIMB - Vista

2007-10-13T19:20:00.000+04:00

This thing came at a moment when I’m nurturing an idea of blog-based media business. And I couldn’t afford to miss this.

Too many cooks spoil the broth.. And spoiling is catalyzed when the cooks are individually great, but kind of fiercely independent .. This started with a topic something like this – “Media, for public good or for business“. The first 10 minutes was something like a typical IMS / TIME GD with some individually great speakers, who spoke great from their perspective, but lot divergent from the central theme.. Perhaps an exception was Business World head Jehangir Pocha

Not surprisingly, Arnab Goswami of Times-Now, was quite pro-business.. In between Arnab’s speech, I tend to get a doubt whether this is an extempore or a discussion :) . News channels and news media are basically businesses – Not something that I can digest completely -- with morality and ethics in which they should operate. Even his examples of one-off instances of ethics and morality failed to impress me.

Sohail Seth spoke in a typical Khushwant Singh style. Arrogant, laced with humorous ( lurid ?? ) comments, yet quite honest :).
Jehangir was quite level – headed in his views..

Some of the questions which came in discussion –

Should media really invest in reporting the news or does media have a responsibility to change the society ? – I believe yes, but how many of the media channels invest in that?

Is media justified in entering into equity arrangements with businesses? Or in general, is a pro-profit socially responsible media kind of an oxymoron?

Towards the end of the meeting – quite the same impression that I had initially itself. Moderator asks something, Arnav answers something totally different – the content impressive – audience applauds -- but has no connection with what the moderator Sonny Abraham asked for. I wonder what would Rajdeep Sardesai / Barkha Dutt have done if he/she was the moderator :)

Career options in media – Jehangir’s take is that the scope is more for entrepreneurs. .Hmmm.. good :).

To sum it up , individually the content was impressive, but collectively not good.

Quotes of the meet -- “A man is as young as the woman whom he feels“ -- Sohail Seth. :)

“You can’t be half pregnant in case of ethical media” – Again Sohail Seth :)

Ajith

Iphone - Hands on experience finally !!!

2007-10-11T14:19:00.000+04:00

Finally I got to operate an iphone.. And man..what a device..No wonder ppl queued up in front of Apple stores to buy this .. The safari browser, video/audio quality, touchpad keyboard, image quality...everything.. all looks too good..

So, my next phone has to be this or Google should come out with their G-phone soon :)

Latest 'Acquisition' from Landmark

2007-10-08T21:14:00.000+04:00

The picture shows my latest collection from Landmark.. Thanks to my team mates for gifting me Landmark coupon as a b'day gift :) .

Any opinion / comments about any of these books are welcome..

The books are

1) India after Gandhi by Ramachandra Guha
-- Heard lot of good reviews..And I being a history buff couldn't neglect it :) . Supposed to be an authoritative book on Independent India ..

2) The McKinsey Mind by Ethan Rasiel and Paul Friga ..
-- Any comments from any MBA grads / students ??

3) The Mind of a Strategist by Kenichi Ohmae
-- Suggested umpteen times by our strat-management professor Rishikesha Krishnan.. When u admire the classes of a teacher so much, its quite natural that u'll end up buying these .. Finally I bought it after the term got over :)

4) Life of Pi by Yann Martel
-- I know its quite popular, but haven't had the opportunity to read it yet..

5) The Prince by Niccolo Machiavelli
-- This is a book for which I might write a review soon after I finish reading it..Have read lot of quotes and excerpts from this book..And they were quite thought provoking ..
Its supposed to be a classic political book ..

--- Only tough thing is, I've to find time to read all this :(

Ajith

Review: Online Casino Blue Book

2007-10-07T00:14:00.000+04:00

Sponsored Review : Online Casino Blue Book

Have you ever wondered why people are addicted to gambling ? When you see James Bond movies like Casino Royale , where people splurge cash like anything , have you wondered whether this level of a gambling really happens ? The answer is a resounding yes... And the site that I'm reviewing has got lot to do with being a gateway to online gambling :)

Best things that I liked about this site

1. The simple game explanations..Baccarat, black jack , poker ..and so on
-- When Daniel Craig won Poker in Casino Royale, how many of us truly understood that game ? Hunting for online tutorials is a pain..These people have a nice intro to all those popular casino games.. No matter what people say, I love learning card games .. And whenever I get some free time, I'm going to learn these things..

2. Online Casino Links
-- I don't have money or credit to gamble.. Hence I cannot test those..But they have a seemingly good collection of top casinos ( online ) refreshed regularly..They are promising welcome bonuses..But I'm yet to try those..Those dollar figures are somewhat astronomical to me :)

3. Individual casino reviews ( available through sitemap )
-- This appears good..and I had a quick look at some..They seems to be writing from a neutral perspective.

Whats still lacking in site

Histories, strategies, advanced casino game guides ( atleast good links to those ) .. Also, maybe getting a VISA/paypal certification would bring in better reputation.

Also, a google search of online casinos does not throw up this anywhere in the top..Understandable as it is a new site..However, the surprising thing is that there are no sponsored advertisements in Google Search for Online Casinos, which means bidding for 'Online Casino' through adwords should be easy.. I guess with more marketing , this site can do better.

Ajith

Review Me: Does that work ???

2007-10-04T07:26:00.000+04:00

I knew my blog is reasonably popular..But I didnt know that its popular enough for web-masters to get their site reviewed through my blog..Sometime ago I signed up in ReviewMe!, partly out of curiosity , partly because I had some free time.. Yesterday, someone placed an offer through ReviewMe!, to review their site through my blog..And the promised amount is 20$ .. ( which is almost equivalent to 800/- Rs ) .. Just curious about this particular site..Has anyone tried ReviewMe! before ? And do they pay as they promise ? Their payment terms promise that once the total amount that they owe us crosses 25$, they will pay..Now for thats just completing this review and scouting for another review through their site...But still skeptical about their payouts..Anybody had any prior experience with this ? Please comment here or mail me if you had any experience with ReviewMe!. Anyway I'm giving a shot..Will be putting up the site review soon..

Ajith

Three Stress busters for Software Engineers

2007-09-23T16:46:00.000+04:00

Last week one of my friends was talking to me about the insane levels of stress that the IT professionals go through in their profession...Yes, at times this profession is demanding..and this cubicle life has kind of transformed the friendships and networks that we otherwise build over a glass of beer or a stroll in the park into different domains like Orkut & Facebook, where ppl are more or less doing a kind of virtual interaction.. Ofcourse there are immense benefits for these social networking sites, but then the shift from real life to online life has more or less happened with the Gen-X ..
Now how you handle your wellbeing in this online life ? While drawing up plans for your day-today life, realize that you are a human..not a machine..Because if you plan things like 6 - 9 PM movie, 9 - 10 PM Tech design review or something like that, the probability that you screw up the review is very high..Because at the end of the movie, your mind might not be in a comfortable state to switch to work.. I generally find myself to be more productive in work if I read a few Dilbert comic strips every hour ..And I find myself to be even more productive if I take a look towards the Christ college gate once in a while :) ( My cubicle in office is at a such 'strategic' location that if I turn and look out of window, I can see the 'colorful' crowd at the college entrance :) ) . These 'distractions' tend to refresh your mind to a very high extend..
Here is a list of such 'online distractions' which can give you a good laugh anytime and 'refresh' or de-stress your mind :)

Stress Buster 1:) Dilbert
-- Most of the online folks would definitely be aware of dilbert..But here are some of the less known dilbert 'features' or strips which'll definitely give you a good laugh

(a) Mission Statement Generator

-- Every time you get a company mission statements from your CEO / VP / whoever it is , go to Dilbert Mission statement generator and generate 10 random mission statements..The tool is basically a script which generates random mission statements from a collection of verbs,adverbs, pronouns etc .. And see how closely your company mission statement corresponds to these 'Dilbert mission statements' that is randomly generated :) .. You'll be surprised with the results :)

Some of the random mission statements from Dilbert MSG are
"It is our mission to quickly supply world-class products while promoting personal employee growth"
"

Our challenge is to quickly build principle-centered technology so that we may endeavor to competently integrate mission-critical solutions while maintaining the highest standards"

"We exist to assertively leverage existing corporate solutions as well as to continually initiate diverse content"

"It is our business to proactively coordinate inexpensive deliverables while maintaining the highest standards"

"We envision to quickly customize professional technology while promoting personal employee growth"

-- These strike a chord with you :) ???

(b) Dilbert & IIT -- IITians are world class..No doubt about that..Now, read those Dilbert snips where he pokes fun at IIT-grads :).. This is why Scott Adams is the best cartoonist around.

Stress Buster 2) -- Ouch My Toe
-- This is a good site for all guys who are trying to understand the fairer sex..And the other way too for girls who think about why these guys act like this :-) ..This has got enough articles than can hook you to this site for ages.. So, read in moderation :-) .. And he has taken pains to consolidate those into PDFs for folks who would like to print it and keep for reference :) ..A good link for bachelors. :)

Stress Buster 3) -- CNN Wild wacky World

They have an ingenuous ability to dig up all the crazy stuff happening around the world..And most of them are hilarious too.. Some might be objectionable , but all are good source for a good laugh atleast :)

--- So, have a good laugh , de-stress yourself and enjoy your life :)

Ajith

Google Phone : Fact or Fiction ?

2007-09-13T07:09:00.000+04:00

Caution :- Heavy technology – business related article.. Quite long too.. People who are not interested, please skip .. This is an article which can bring brickbats or bouquets to me some time later :)

Over the last few months, blogosphere has been abuzz with news about a mobile phone that Google is about to launch. The frenzy over this so called G-phone has reached such proportions that people have started coming out with imaginary designs of the G-phone.. Being someone who is extremely interested in this search – revenue related Google business or rather g-business, I’ve too joined the group by launching a g-phone blog and hoping to rake in some ad-revenues :) .. However, this post is not just about speculation ..This post is about some facts of the search industry and why does it make sense for Google to get into mobile phone related business .

The Search – Revenue Entangle

Some people laugh at Google’s pay-per-click policy. And most of us can count using fingers the number of times when we intentionally clicked a Google Ad or a sponsored web search link. Then how do these translate into revenue for Google?

Initially I too was highly skeptical about their business model. But the answer lies in the sheer size and scale of penetration of internet. Billions of web searches happen every day.
Millions of web pages have Google Ads (These Ads are rendered based on keywords) on them. And if you take an approximate count of the number of times, a keyword like say ‘DVD player’ comes into relevance in day-today web surfing of people across the world, it would give you a staggering figure. Infact, for a globally operating company like ‘Canon’ , the kind of returns that they would get if they do an online advertising campaign based on a relevant keyword like ‘digital camera’ would far exceed returns from any other traditional advertising channel.

Coming closer home, have you noticed ‘magicbricks.com’ ads ( they are into real estate business ) appearing in TV as well as in Google Ads in Indian blogs.. I’d say, they have smartly managed their advertising campaign. With just a few dollars, they have successfully ‘resereved’ select keywords like ‘Cochin’, ‘Vizag’, ‘Mysore’,’Gurgaon’ etc ( basically all new emerging townships ) .. Throughout blogs and news portals where these keywords show up, Google Ads of magicbricks.com show their head. They might not have succeeded in generating much online transactions from those Ads..But they would have atleast generated thousands of curious phone calls, thousands of new housing/plot related advertisements in their site. And, if you see something on TV, which you have already noticed on web, you tend to attend to that a little bit more..In other words, successful bidding of a few keywords in Google search has been an integral part of the magicbricks’ advertising strategy. And I believe they are reaping returns from that.

So, the key point is, a seemingly innocuous Google search on ‘Cochin’ might result in a commercial benefit for sites like magicbricks.com and Google too in the long run. That’s the power of smart online advertising.

So far so good.. But then, why does Google have to look at mobile phone sector ? Why can’t Google remain in web-search itself? ..There are lot of reasons for that. But everything boils down to an inherent problem with Google Ads –

Tracking of true value generation for the advertiser.

Like any other TV ads or wall poster Ads, it is extremely tough to measure the true returns from Google Ads on web. As an advertiser, I would always like to measure the returns to my invested money in monetary terms. Or in other words, I’d like to measure how many of the Google Ads resulted in a financial transaction of benefit to me. Of-course you can always argue that most advertisements create brand / product awareness and those indirectly result in monetary transactions. But those indirect transactions are not easy to measure… Hence, any advertiser would prefer a medium of advertising through which he’ll be able to measure the direct returns from advertisements or the direct financial transactions arising out of that. Or in more technical terms, e-commerce industry is eagerly awaiting a paradigm shift to a ‘pay-per-transaction’ model (I’d pay Google when a transaction of benefit to me happens out of their advertising ).. from the existing ‘pay-per-click/impression’ model ( I’d pay Google when someone views my Ad – hoping that those views would result in a direct or indirect Ad-benefit to me ).. Now there are lot of technical and business difficulties in implementing a true ‘pay-per-transaction’ advertising model on web based on just internet and PCs.. Here comes the importance of mobile phones.

How mobile phones may function 10 years later ?

Imagine you going to a shop. You like a product..instead of paying by cash, you pay through your mobile phone by sending an SMS / RFID / Bluetooth / Wireless communication to the shopkeeper’s mobile phone , which inturn would debit money from your bank account and credit it to the shopkeeper… U think this is a technological fantasy or something totally ridiculous ? Well, take this news .. Google has applied for a patent on such a software system dubbed as ‘G-pay’

Ok, so you think it is possible ? ..Now think about a more advanced scenario.. You go to a wineshop.. You see a bottle of Bordeaux Wine and notice the price..Apparently you get a suspicion whether it is priced at a higher level.. You take out your cell phone, use the cellphone bar code scanner to scan in the information about the wine .. And using that scanned in information you do a google local search, which would list the nearby shops selling the same wine and their prices.. And you go to the appropriate shop to get the wine bottle at the correct price.. This part is not my creativity .. Its taken from John Battelle’s “ The Search ” -- perhaps the most authoritative book on Search Industry Now, this is a bit of scientific fantasy at the moment. But note that it is not technologically impossible.. I mean, all parts of that scenario like barcode scanner, google local search, GPS etc exists even now.

Now as an extension of that scenario, assume that you pay for that Bordeaux wine bottle using ‘G-pay’ ( i.e, SMS based payment that I described earlier ) -- Isnt it possible to visualize a true ‘pay-per-transaction’ model based that scenario ? You have done google search, you have viewed details of the wine at the relevant shop, you have paid using G-pay --- Now it is possible for Google to charge a certain percentage of Wine bottle’s cost as advertising charge because they are able to uniquely trace back that wine-bottle purchase to a Google search… Isn’t this the ‘pay-per-transaction’ model that the e-commerce industry is truly awaiting?

Where in Mobile phone Industry will Google come into?

Ok, so agreed that mobile phone is going to play a bigger role in future? But then Google is a software company. Forget a tough job like mobile phone manufacturing. They don’t have much expertise in hardware itself. How are they going ahead with such a niche job like handset manufacturing.. Afterall, it’s the forte of elegant designers in Nokia / Apple / Motorola etc ? And doesn’t it make sense for Google to roll out a mobile phone OS clubbed with G-pay?

The answers are pretty intricate again… To start off with, take these news too

1) Google interested in bidding for a wireless spectrum that’s up for sale in US

2) This is actually a Google link itself over the available openings in Google UK

What kind of openings you see there :) ?

Now I’m explaining based on mobile-phone industry, about which my knowledge is extremely superficial..If Google rolls out a mobile OS integrated with G-pay, do you think established players like Apple ( which is actually quite nitpicky about the software that it has in i-phone ) , Nokia and Motorola will take it up ? The answer is a straight NO. Nokia would never think of discarding its Symbian OS.. Neither would Microsoft mobile OS or Motorola’s linux based systems disappear from market..They have invested millions in developing these. And they would not throw it away at one shot

Now, what would happen if they release G-pay as a third-party application ? .. This is a move that’s quite possible.. But then, there are lot of tricky issues in such a case.If G-pay is being released as a third-party App, Google will have to provide different versions to suit different mobile phones..And, in the absence of a dedicated carrier frequency or spectrum , it would not succeed in a big way..And third-party systems are more prone to hacking/security issues..

Ok..now, both of the above scenarios, even if they seem to be possible, does not seem to be a killer combination..Now lets imagine another science-fantasy scenario.. Imagine you have a google-phone integrated with Google-talk.. And assume that Google has a dedicated wireless spectrum ( which it may get soon ) . Then you might be able to talk to your friend using Google phone (indirectly using Google talk ) without paying anything to the so called ‘SIM card’ provider J .. Doesn’t it look appealing? ..And what if you are able to pay some shopkeeper sitting in SanFranciso from NewYork by using Google-phone SMS over the wireless spectrum ? -- Doesn’t it look even more attractive ? ..

Infact I believe Google’s interest in bidding for the wireless spectrum by investing billions of dollars is a very strong indication that some google-phone ( hardware ) is going to come..Because, without a dedicated handset, its not quite possible to get good return on those billions that it would put for bidding the spectrum.. But then, who is going to make the handset ? Does Google have the required expertise to make it ?
Actually based on the business , the handset does not have to be quite sophisticated like the iphone or any of those N-series. It should have wireless interfacing capabilities , it should have integration with Google talk, it should have the G-pay integration..And obviously , tight integration with all google products like search, checkout , maps, youtube etc.. Infact I don’t think it would even have a dial-pad kind of facility.. I feel calling a person would be more or less based on Gmail ID .. And more than the phone functionality, it may function as an electronic wallet for sending and receiving payments.

Doubtful about whether a customer having a normal GSM / CDMA phone would switch to a number-less ( but gmail ID based ) phone world ? They might be reluctant initially..but in the long run, they would..because in a g-phone based communication, they won’t be paying anything as cell phone usage charge to anyone else other than Google.. And quite likely , in such an environment , Google may discount on call charges in return for Ads ..because Ads served in G-phone – G pay system would be based on a ‘pay-per-transaction’ model..And advertisers will be quite willing to take that... But still, the issue of expertise with handset design remained a tricky issue to me ..Until yesterday when I got this link ==> http://www.tech2.com/india/news/smart-mobile-phones/htc-may-develop-google-phone/15741/0.. They are going to outsource the design of the gadget to someone else..

After that link, everything seems to be fitting in perfectly well…The entire business model looks to be fitting in in an excellent way :) ..It remains to be seen when Google will actually come out with such a phone at-least in US.. Contrary to what many analysts think, I don’t think the release is immediate, though I’d be happy to be proved wrong .. The first hurdle – Wireless spectrum bidding – is yet to be surpassed..Only after that , will some solid information come into the public.. And I guess it’d take at-least an year for them to actually come up with the business model in US. Until then, happy speculation :) Happy G-phone designs :) Happy G-phone blogs too :)

Ajith

Interview by Cuckoo

2007-09-11T05:35:00.001+04:00

This is a kind of different 'tag' which I came across last month.. Cuckoo is interviewing people based on their blogs..When I signed in for the interview, I thought it was going to be very superficial..But she dug up and read many of my long forgotten blogposts and had questions based on that.. Really when someone spend such time and effort on your blogs, you ought to give as detailed answers as possible.. :) ... Only difference on this tag from my side is that I'm not going to interview you ppl as a continuation of the tag..This requires a lot of time, which unfortunately I dont have ... So, anybody who is interested in having such an interview, please contact Cuckoo herself... But believe me, you'll enjoy the interview..

So, here it goes..
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Good Morning Mr. Ajith Prasad. If you don't mind I will call you Ajith. Well, before we start, let me put a few things a little straight to you. As you know I would be taking your interview, you are expected to remain seated calmly without questioning my questions or no. of questions. There are going to be five main questions with some sub-questions. Treat them as parts a, b, c etc. please be as detailed as possible, it'll give you some practice for your exams. And now, for God's sake keep your face a little more cheerful. It looks like you have come here for a mourning.
Yeah, that's a little better now. Keep smiling like that. You do look good after that wonderful haircut. Here we go..

1 . You have started blogging since July 2004. That's a long time. But your first post is of June 25, 2005. Have you deleted some posts? And I can see you have as many as 6 blogs !! That should go for some kind of record I guess. Can you elaborate what these blogs are about and why have you kept them, specially when you are a busy person struggling thru your FinAcc and your studies. Well, most of them have only 2/3 posts but still we want to know.
How blogging journey has changed your life, your perception over the period of time ?

Ans : July 2004 is the month when I created my gmail account.. I started blogging in June – 2005  . I think I’ve deleted just one post… but that was much later.
6 blogs – mostly created at the spur of the moment ..Those are not updated frequently. Couple of them are used for testing my entrepreneurship idea – check http://blogs.edotte.com
Blogging journey has given me lot of new friends.. And I’m a firm believer of the Godfather message – “In your life its your contacts, relationships and acquaintances that matters the most “ ..I believe blogging has really widened my network. I has also helped me to develop my language.. As a result of this, my speaking skills have also developed… I mean, ideas or intentions crystallizes into words quickly now.. For someone like me who has studied in a more or less Malayalam-dominated environment, it has been really a boon.

2. I can see you, in your own small way, are trying to help the society. That's an applaudable gesture. Do you think blogs can make a big difference? What do you think of the society we live in? Like many of us you too get affected by things happening around you e.g. when a friend's marriage was breaking up and you wanted to help them. Were you able to do something for them ? What do you think when someone calls you philosophical ?

Ans :Blogs can make a big difference in generating awareness. And to a certain extent it can motivate people too. But there is no substitute for the ground work that you have to do to make a difference.. Spending a day cleaning a park or hospital is much much more valuable than blogging about those and generating 1000 chain mails. Indians have a general tendency to form 10 committees for a simple task and all committees end up doing extensive planning but not much action. I see that every now and then. Even I’ve been part of some such non-functional committees. But really, ‘making your hands dirty’ as some people say is really what the society needs.
All societies have certain plus points and minus points. And no one can afford to live a totally disconnected life.. What might seem to be good for me might seem to be bad for you..Its all perceptions. I believe for anyone to call their life meaningful, they have to make some contribution to the society that would motivate the coming generations.. All might not be able to do that. But atleast we should try for that
Over that friend’s marriage thing – No I was not able to do anything for them.. However, time has more or less mended their differences I believe..They r together now.
Yes, at times I’m really philosophical.. Especially people who have had long dinner conversations with me would vouch for that.

3.Can you please tell us about the funniest moment of your life till date ? What was your age then ?

Tough to classify the most funniest moment.. Maybe its upto you people to evaluate..Go through http://ajithprasadb.blogspot.com/2007/02/some-lighter-moments.html
and http://ajithprasadb.blogspot.com/2007/05/absent-minded.html

4. Which movie made an impact on your life and why ?

The movie - book ( actually book is far better in this case ) combination of 'Godfather - part I & II ' ( Godfather III is crap -- courtesy Sofia Copolla ) has definitely made an impact on me.. Why? Because Godfather is an institution on its own.. Every-time I re-read this book, I tend to realize something or other that applies to my life ( or in general to everyone's life ) .. I'd say, if you haven't read Godfather, you are missing something in life ( read the book first,then see the movie ).. Books like this prepare you for life better the than the so called self-improving books like "The seven habits of highly effective people" ... The point is that, the story, scenes , screenplay& dialogues of Godfather would remain etched in your memory for long ( consequently, the messages conveyed through those ) rather than pure verbose description of those principles....Thanks to Mario Puzzo, Marlon Brando & Al Pacino :)

5. You have been given unlimited wealth, you have already saved the world and given generously to every charity. How are you choosing to spend the rest of your life? Don't copy my answer.. say something different.

Unlimited wealth + charity + saving the world – hah..interesting.. I’d spend the rest of my life doing two things – Roaming around every possible tourist destination across world with my wife ( hope she would like to travel :) )..And I’d acquire a bookshop chain like ‘Landmark’ / ‘Cross words’ and make it my personal library ..And read and write as much as I can :)

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So guys, contact Cuckoo if you wish to have such an interview

Ajith

Perfect Vs Imperfect

2007-08-29T12:47:00.000+04:00

Learning from the past:- " The problem in trying to be perfect or atleast posing to be near-perfect is that one mistake would crush up that entire edifice..And it would be a pain to recover. " ..

Recent Learning:- " The problem in being imperfect is that you might get blamed for mistakes happening around you because of your imperfect nature even-though you are not responsible for it ".

Current Mood :- Philosophic & Confused.

Mohanlal's Best...

2007-08-24T13:28:00.000+04:00

An old comedy scene from a mallu-movie in the 1980s... Seldom has Lal acted like this in recent times.. Non-Mallus, please excuse.. Ask your mallu friend to see this and explain it to you..
Mallus , Enjoy!!!!

An Independence Day with a difference

2007-08-15T15:14:00.000+04:00

Have you ever tried going back to your high-school for Independence day celebrations ? I did that today..Was lazing at home for the last couple of days.. So, just thought of going to my School ( N.S.S High School Calicut ) for independence day.. And it was a different experience..Standing near the school assembly,hearing the band set, national anthem etc..Phew...It has been 9 years since I passed out of this institution ( 98 SSLC batch ).. And when you go back to such a place , nostalgia will strike you quite heavy..I go there once in a while,but this trip was special.. Some of the teachers who taught me are still there..One of my classmates is a teacher there now..It was quite nostalgic when teachers recollect the experiences they had with us.. It seems they too miss us sometimes. :) ..

There was nothing extraordinary about this school..But yet, it is quite special to me..Its a school which gave me lot of freedom..I remember one of the prime activities during my 9th and 10th was going through the newspapers every morning, getting info about all the quiz programs in city and going for those ( Calicut has a very vibrant quizzing circuit ) and ofcourse, bunking classes for those :) . . And NSS formed a crack-team during those days along with Silver-hills, Central school etc . Those days were really great ...I'm quite different from what I used to be during those days..My ideals, my principles , my vision..all are different now.. But yet, the school still attracts me a lot ...

The school also reminded me of my adolescent crushes.. The 'discussions' we friends used to have ( ofcourse about the gals :) )-- Yeah , we were quite naughty during those days.. Among our classmates, we had a guy whom all of us used to make fun because of his 'ignorance' in those matters..But, apparently he 'invested' his time very well during engineering college..He got married 3 months before :) and we 'scholars' are still single ( and eligible :P ) .. In this connection, check out this article by Jiby about his Loyola days..Somewhat filmy & funny :) . It would remind many of you the 'games' you played during your school days.
Guys,gals ..Do make trips to your school on such occasions .. These things are really nostalgic :) .

Ajith